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COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 




" U^ ' 



He's Hit," Sergeant Lace Cries suddenly. And 
INDEED He Is Hit See page loi 



COVERED WITH MUD 
AND GLORY 

A Machine Gun Company in Action 

("Ma Mitrailleuse") 
BY 

GEORGES LAFOND 

I ; 

Sergeant-Major, Territorial Hussars, French Army; Intelligence 
Officer, Machine Gun Sections, French Colonial Infantry 

With a Preface by Maurice Barres 

of the French Academy 

Translated by Edwin Gile Rich 



INCLUDING 

"A Tribute to the Soldiers of France" 

BY 

GEORGES CLEMENCEAU 




BOSTON 
SMALL, MAYNARD ^ COMPANY 



PUBLISHERS 



L 15 



Copyright, 191 8 

By Small, Maynard & Company 

(incorporated) 



MAR -5 1918 ''^'^' 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 



©CU481934 



(ITo tfje iUemorp of 

My Comrades of the second company of machine guns 
of the . . . first Colonials 

who fell at the battle of the Somme in July, 1916, 
and of the Aisne in April, 1917; 

Lieutenants Maisonnave and Dupouy 

in remembrance of the hours of fine, sincere comradeship we lived 
together; 

^0 

Denys Maurin 

the quartermaster-sergeant, wounded heroically before Soissons, 
in testimony of a sincere friendship which was born under shell- 
fire, which grew amid the horrors of grim madness, and which 
was firmly fixed through sharing common hopes and common joys; 

/ dedicate these shnple pages 

which are only a modest contribution to 
the monumental narrative which these 
anonymous epics of every day would make 



A TRIBUTE TO THE SOLDIERS OF 
FRANCE 

By Georges Clemenceau 

I WATCH our blue-uniformed men at war, as 
they pass with a friendly and serious look, 
generously covered with mud. This is the artil- 
lery — slow marching — which is moving its 
cannon under a fantastic camouflage, a mockery 
of reality. A glistening slope of soaked earth is 
set in a frame of shattered trees, twisted into in- 
describable convulsions of anguish with the gaping 
wounds inflicted by the storm of iron. On their 
horses, already covered with winter shag, the 
poilus, slouched in all sorts of positions, having 
no suggestion of the rigid form of the manoeuvre, 
are going from one battlefield to another without 
any other thought except that of just keeping on 
going. 

In colorless and shapeless uniforms, indescrib- 
ably rigged out, and in poses of the most pleasur- 
able leisure, the soldiers of France picturesquely 

[vii] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

slip from glory to glory, less aware, it seems, of 
historic grandeur than of serene gladness in im- 
placable duty. They are picturesque because 
nature will have it so, but without any romanti- 
cism or sense of posing — officers hardly to be 
distinguished from privates by vague, soiled 
stripes — all the men enveloped in a halo of 
splendor above anything known to ordinary 
humanity. 

The pugnacious pipe or the sportive cigarette 
hinders their expression of any personal reflection. 
Only their eyes are animate, and these express 
things which cannot be told in words lest they be 
profaned. The line of their lip is youthful under 
a silky moustache or firm with age under gray 
brush. But the fire of their look, framed in their 
dark helmets, leaps out with quiet intensity to 
meet the tragic unknown that no longer can bring 
surprise. They are our soldiers of the year II 
who are following the Biblical column of fire. 
They see something. They go to it. Ashamed 
of my humility, I should like to find words to say 
to them. But, were I a poet, they would have no 
need of hearkening to me, since the greatest 
beauty of man lies in them, and since, unwitting 
[ viii ] 



A TRIBUTE TO SOLDIERS OF FRANCE 

of utterance, which at best seems inept, these men 
live on the summits of life. 

And the " old classes " who prosaically break 
stone at the side of the road or work with the 
shovel, the pickaxe, the broom, making the toilette 
of the road of triumph, what an injustice if I did 
not mention them ! How does it happen that the 
noblest soldier is always the one I chance upon? 
That is the miracle of these men; and when I tell 
you that on the battlefield of the Aisne the " old 
classes," not granting that it was necessary to 
wait to the end of the battle before beginning to 
clear and rebuild, went off into the hottest of the 
action to fill up craters, to break stones, to place 
tree-trunks and beams during heavy fire, without 
vouchsafing the Boche a single hasty gesture, so 
that they might the more quickly open the way 
for revictualling and for the bringing up of artil- 
lery — when I tell you this, you will admit that 
they do not deserve a lesser greeting than their 
*' young ones." 

And the infantryman — could I commit the 
supreme injustice of forgetting him? That is 
impossible when one has gone over the battle- 
ground where he has taken possession of the bur- 

[ix] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

rows of the Boches, among heaps of munition 
material, cases of supplies, an indescribable 
debris, abandoned with their dead and wounded 
in the haste of a desperate fight. What we cannot 
understand is that our little poilu can pass so 
quickly from the apathy of the trench to the ex- 
treme fury of the attack, and then from the vio- 
lence of the offensive to the calm smile of a victory 
of which his modesty seems to say: " It was as 
easy as all that." 

I did not hear a single boast, or see a disagree- 
able act, or hear a word that sounded false. Like 
a good-hearted proprietor returning home, they 
took possession of the shelters of the Boche so 
hurriedly abandoned. Here can be found the 
comforts of war, if these two words can be spoken 
together. The men talk in groups at the openings 
of the underground passages, camouflaged by the 
enemy himself. The indifference of their atti- 
tudes, the ease of their familiar conversation, in 
which there mingle no bragging (though this is 
the place for it), are more characteristic of the 
situation of some simple bourgeois who have hap- 
pened to meet on Sunday in the street. A major 
begs my pardon for wearing a collared shirt, 

[x] 



A TRIBUTE TO SOLDIERS OF FRAxNCE 

which is not perfectly " regular " at an official 
review. Messengers pass, throwing out a word 
or making a simple sign. Officers step up for 
brief explanations. A half-salute, a nodding of 
the head — it is over. Not far away, on the road 
cut into the rock, where the stupid Boche, after 
our passings, sends his impotent shells, our always 
young " old classes " hang on to the slopes in 
order to see the projectile fall, and make uncom- 
plimentary remarks about the gunner. Then 
work is resumed till the next warning whistles in 
the air. 

It is after twelve and we have not yet dined. 
A big devil of a Moroccan colonel, with a Don 
Quixotic face under an extraordinary headpiece, 
invites us to his P. C. (post of command), where 
the Boche has left useful bits of installation. A 
black hole is two steps away from us. We go 
down into the ground, over abrupt descents, and 
there we are protected from the " marmites " in 
a dark corridor lit by candles stuck into the 
mouths of German gas masks. We sit down on 
anything handy (I even have the favor of a 
chair), before a board which also serves as the 
colonel's bed, while arms whose body remains 

[xi] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

invisible serve us with dishes not to be disdained 
by a gourmand. How did they get there? I 
cannot undertalce to explain that. The walk in 
the open air, the tragic nature of the place, the 
joy in land reconquered, no doubt all lend particu- 
lar spice to the comradeship of these men who 
forget that they have done great deeds as soon 
as they have done them. Pictures and illustrated 
pages tremble in the fluttering candle-lights, 
among them a Victorious France, drawn by the 
pencil of the colonel. A telephonist measures out 
mouthfuls of conversation to a military post that 
sends in observations and receives ours. Long 
time or short time, for here hours and minutes 
are alike, here is a magic that ends too soon. We 
must go. 

The colonel would have been perfect if he had 
not made it a point of honor to avoid all danger 
for his civilian visitor. In the morning he had 
tried to forbid me a flying visit to the marvellous 
castle of Pinion, but he finally understood that 
even a soldier has to be born a civilian and that 
he should not therefore scorn his own origin. 
The trip was accomplished without the shadow of 
an incident, but the colonel, who insists more 
[xii] 



A TRIBUTE TO SOLDIERS OF FRANCE 

than ever on the rights and privileges of the uni- 
form, will not permit me to return until the Boche 
cannon favors us with a little respite. The Boche 
can hardly make up his mind to such a favor; 
hence, several false departures and changings of 
direction. Finally, the colonel lets us go under 
the guard of a robust sergeant-major, who even 
yesterday magnificently led his stretcher-bearers 
to the aid of the wounded under the hottest fire. 
Although he is not of the youngest class, he has 
refused to be retired from the front. He is 
spoken of only with respect, I might say admira- 
tion. " He goes everywhere." He is fine, genial 
company. After many necessary little zigzags, 
a walk that is not very strenuous and very soon 
over, I left the brave sergeant, whom I shall 
always remember. 

I cannot finish this inconsequent account with- 
out speaking of the touching ceremony which I 
witnessed at Soissons, the terribly bombarded. 
Since the victory of Malmaison the city has been 
out of range. But when you have seen the build- 
ing of the sub-prefect tottering with shell-holes, 
a building that neither the sub-prefect nor his wife 
has left, the shortest walk will tell you a long tale. 

[ xiii ] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

The general, who is a good fellow — I take 
pleasure in saying that — had proposed to show 
me something, and so here I am in a public 
square having the imposing silhouette of the 
cathedral as a background. From the height of 
the great towers, with their wide wounds, history, 
attentive, looks down. Everywhere there is a for- 
midable display of cannon taken from the enemy. 
There are piles of them, heaps of them. There 
are too many to count, together with a bewilder- 
ing mass of trench instruments of all sorts. Can 
you believe it? They do not hold the eye. How 
is that possible? Because on the sidewalk oppo- 
site, in splendid alignment, is the gorgeous gather- 
ing of soldiers with medals and decorations who 
have captured these things. Ah! They hold the 
eye I There they are, with all sorts of faces and 
from all branches of the service, with the flag 
which they have followed into battle and which 
now must be present at their honor. 

To be quite honest, the group is not so aesthetic 
as a picture of Versailles. These men are too 
great for much ceremony. With a jerky step 
the general advances; his brusque movements 
reveal the homage of his emotion before the 
[xiv] 



A TRIBUTE TO SOLDIERS OF FRANCE 

bravest of the brave. Slowly he passes along the 
line, while the adjutant reads in a stirring voice 
the high deeds in the citations. And the military 
medal quivers on each noble breast at the recol- 
lection of the tremendous drama lived through. 
And the general utters a comrade's congratula- 
tion, shakes a friendly hand, expresses a good 
wish. Then the flag salutes, while the drums 
rumble in these hearts drunk, with lov^e of country. 
At the greeting of the flag of the glorious Chas- 
seurs, a rag torn by machine guns, something gets 
hold of our throats, which the trumpets hurt with 
their sublime peal. If there are more beautiful 
spectacles, I do not know them. One minute here 
is worth years. 

And I have said nothing of the people about, 
silent, all in mourning, their souls full of tears, 
which finally brim over. Men, hats off, motion- 
less as statues, proud of becoming great through 
their children. Mothers, with seared faces, su- 
perbly stoic under the eye of the greater maternity 
of the great country. The children in the ecstasy 
of feeling about them something greater than 
they can understand, but already certain that they 
will understand some day this immortal hour. 

[xv] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

And not a cry, not a word sounds In the air, noth- 
ing but the great silence of the courage of all of 
them. Then everyone goes away, firm and erect, 
to a glorious destiny. In every heart La France 
has passed. 

Note. — A few days before M. Clemenceau, premier of France, 
was called to power, he returned from a visit to the Aisne front and 
published his impressions in his paper, L'Hommf Enchaine, now 
L'Homme Libre. When he became premier, U Illustration repub- 
lished this "Tribute to the Soldiers of France," and it has since been 
widely reproduced and admired throughout France. The present 
English translation by Harry Kurz was printed in the New York 
Tribune, to the editors of which grateful acknowledgment is made for 
permission to reprint here. 



PREFACE 

SERGEANT-MAJOR GEORGES LA- 
FOND, of the Territorial Hussars, the 
author of this book, was in South America at 
the time of mobilization. He returned to France 
as soon as possible and joined his corps, but asked 
to be assigned as intelligence officer to the ma- 
chine-gun sections of the . . . first regiment of 
Colonial Infantry. 

With this picked corps, which has been deci- 
mated several times, he took part in the engage- 
ments in Champagne, on the Somme, at Lihons, 
Dompierre, Herbecourt, and notably in the days 
from the first to the fifth of July, where the 
regiment earned its second citation and received 
the fourragi're. 

Lafond was discharged after the battles of 
Maisonnette, and wrote this book of recollec- 
tions in the hospital at Abbeville, and afterwards 
at Montpellier, where he had to undergo a severe 
operation. 



PREFACE 

Sergeant-Major Lafond's narrative makes no 
claim to literary pretension, but it is simply a col- 
lection of actual occurrences. It is a series of 
short narratives which give the life of a company 
of machine gunners from the day of its formation 
to the hour when it was so decimated that it had 
to be reorganized with men from other corps. 

What pictures the following titles call to mind: 
" A Reconnaissance in the Fog," " The Aero- 
plane," " Our First Engagement," " ' We Have 
Taken a Picket Post,' " " The Attack," " The 
Echelon," " A Water Patrol " ! No man who has 
lived at the front and has taken part in an attack 
will fail to recognize the accuracy of these narra- 
tives and to experience, as well, emotion, enthu- 
siasm, and pride in having been among " those 
who were there." 

This record of adventure was very successful 
when it appeared in the Petit Parisien, and I feel 
sure that it will be successful in book form. I 
beg Sergeant-Major Georges Lafond to accept 
my hearty congratulations on his fine talent and 
his bravery. 

Maurice Barres, 
of the French Academy. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

I The Search for My Company . . i 

II The Quartermaster's Billets ... ii 

III The Echelon 21 

IV The Song of the Machine Gun . . 31 
V A Reconnaissance in the Fog ... 47 

VI Our First Engagement 58 

VII Easter Eggs 71 

VIII The Aeroplane 89 

IX Days in Cantonment 103 

X An Ordinary Fatigue Party .... 122 

XI With Music i35 

XII "We Have Taken a Picket Post" . 148 

XIII A Night Convoy 164 

XIV The Songs of the Homeland. ... 175 
XV A Water Patrol 188 

XVI A Commander I99 

XVII The Attack 217 

XVIII With Orders 232 

XIX A Wreath 250 

XX Discharged 261 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

"He's Hit," Sergeant Lace Cries suddenly, page 

And indeed He Is Hit Frontispiece ^ 

Remains of Villages near the Lines ... 36 "" 
A PoiLU 56 u- 

A sinister Grumbling Seemed to Shatter 

THE Fog 1 10 ^ 

The front line Trench 154 "^ 

A Commandant's Post 166 ^ 

The least dangerous Passage Is the un- 
protected Ground 186 '' 

The Attack 226 ^ 



Note. — These photographs are all copyrighted by 
International Film Ser-vice, Inc. 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 



COVERED WITH MUD 
AND GLORY 



I 



CHAPTER I 

THE SEARCH FOR MY COMPANY 

REMEMBER the exact date and I have 



reason to, for on that Monday, February 
fifteenth, I joined the second company of machine 
guns of the . . . first Colonials at the front. 
It was snowing and the fields of Picardy were one 
vast white carpet on which the auto-trucks traced 
a multitude of black lines to the accompaniment 
of pyrotechnics of mud. 

Two days before I had left my depot in a small 
garrison town in the center of Provence, which 
lay smiling in the sun and already bedecked with 
the first flowers of spring. At Lyons I found 
rain, at Saint-Just-en-Chaussee, snow, and I got 
off the train in a sea of mud. 

In the dim light of a February dawn, the 
station at Villers appeared to be encumbered with 

[i] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

the supplies of half-a-dozen regiments. My car 
was high on its wheels and at the end of the train 
farthest from the unloading platform. At the 
other end of the platform near the entrance to 
the station, I found a rolling bridge for unload- 
ing animals, but it was useless to ask those busy 
people to help me push this weighty contrivance 
to the car. 

So I looked at Kiki — Kiki is my horse — who 
had but recently arrived from Canada and was 
scarcely broken after his two months' training 
at the depot. 

" Kiki, mon vieux/'' I said, " you must make 
up your mind to do as I did and jump. Remem- 
ber that you are a Canadian, and every self- 
respecting Canadian should know how to jump 
as soon as he is born." 

I delivered this kind invitation from the ground 
and I urged him on by pulling on the reins. Kiki 
was not at all frightened. He came to the edge 
of the car, snuffed the air, carefully calculated 
the distance, bent lightly on his hind legs, and 
jumped to the ground without a flutter. 

"The . . . first Colonials? " the military com- 
missioner said to me. " I don't know exactly, 

[2] 



THE SEARCH FOR MY COMPANY 

but you '11 find it somewhere along twenty or 
thirty miles to the east at Proyart or Harbon- 
nieres, or perhaps at Morcourt. There 's a little 
of it all about there." 

So Kiki and I, in the morning mist, went slowly 
along roads covered with snow and grease in 
search of the second company of machine guns. 

Proyart is a small village hidden in a hollow 
of this plain of Picardy which from a distance 
resembled a well-stretched, vast white carpet. 
Here the villages are sheltered in depressions and 
one only sees them when he reaches the level of 
their steeples. It was at Proyart that altogether 
accidentally, thanks to a sign about as large as 
my hand and already partly rubbed out, I found 
the staff of the . . . first Colonials. 

An orderly condescended to move a few steps 
and point out to me at the end of the street to 
the right the billets of the quartermaster of the 
second company of machine guns. 

There was a court — a sewer, as a matter of 
fact — which was completely filled by a pool of 
filth which left only a narrow passage of a foot 
or two by each wall. In a corner was a tangle 
of barrels, farm implements, and broken boxes, 

[3] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

and on that a mass of wet straw, manure, snow, 
and mud. 

At the farther end of the court was a small 
door with glass panels — with a glass panel — 
for only one remained. The spaces were con- 
veniently filled by thick layers of the Petit Pari- 
sien, Matin, Le Journal, Echo de Paris, the great 
dailies which arrived intermittently at Proyart. 

I went in. Kiki wanted to go in, too, but the 
door was low and he was carrying his complete 
pack. Inside was a ruined kitchen. The chim- 
ney still remained, and there was a large table 
made of a door stretched on two barrels, which 
took up the middle of the room. In each corner, 
against the walls, were improvised beds, straw 
mattresses, and heaps of clothes under which I 
surmised there were bodies. 

*' The door, nom de Dieu ! " shouted a voice. 

In front of the chimney was a man struggling 
desperately with a fire. The watersoaked wood 
refused to burn, and the man flooded it with shoe 
grease, which, when it melted, threw out jets of 
yellow flame and filled the room with a pungent 
odor and smoke. 

" The door, the door ! What did he tell you ! " 
[4] 



THE SEARCH FOR MY COMPANY 

cried in different tones voices which came from 
the heaps of covers. 

It was true that a breath of cold air and a 
swirl of snow had rushed into the smoky dark 
hall when I came in. I shut the door and 
asked, 

" Is this the second company of machine 
guns? " 

"What of it? What do you want of the 
second machine guns? It 's here. And after that 
what do you want? Papers, again? Zut! They 
have no idea of bothering people at this hour. 
Leave them on the table and come back in half 
an hour." 

This diatribe emanated from a pile thicker 
than the rest, in the chimney corner. At this 
obsession of papers, of lists to be signed, I guessed 
he was a sergeant or a quartermaster, and I 
kept on: 

" Don't worry. There are no papers. I am 
the mounted intelligence officer attached to this 
company." 

" M . . . 1 " shouted several voices in the four 
corners of the room, while I watched arms and 
muffled heads rise up. 

[5] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

" Mince! So we have a mounted officer now! 
Wonderful ! They 're certainly fitting us out in 
style. What won't they do next? Then, that's 
all right, vieux. Come on in and let us see you. 
And you have a horse? Where is your horse? 
Bring him in; make him come. It must be cold 
out in the court." 

The first burst of curiosity soon passed, the 
torrent of words exhausted itself, and the forms 
which had stirred a moment ago quieted down 
anew. A more peremptory voice now started in 
shouting invectives at the orderly who was still 
struggling with the rebellious wood. 

" Say, Dedouche. Do you think we 're Boche 
sausages that you want to smoke us out? Don't 
you know anything? We '11 have to wear glasses. 
That 's no way to light a fire. What did you 
learn when you were a boy? " 

" The grease is full of water and won't even 
burn." 

" Use the oil in the lamp, then." 

The first result of the immediate execution of 
this order was to fill the room with a black stifling 
cloud which was enough to make one weep. In 
the middle of this smoke the orderly, Dedouche, 

[6] 



THE SEARCH FOR MY COMPANY 

coughed, spat, sputtered, while I heard him 
storm : 

'* In God's name, how that stinks ! How that 
stinks ! " 

The quartermaster, doubtless on account of the 
smoke and the smell, now deigned to get up. He 
was a young man, large, light complexioned, and 
his cheeks were red and fat. He had just a sus- 
picion of a moustache. His ears were hidden 
in a cap which had wings that pulled down. One 
could scarcely see his eyes they were so puffed 
out with sleep and smoke. 

" So you 're the intelligence officer? Sit down. 
Dedouche, make a cup of coffee. I '11 make a 
note of your transfer, and then you can try to 
find a place for yourself until the lieutenant comes. 
Oh, you 've time, you know. He never comes 
before ten o'clock." 

*' But, Quartermaster, it 's nearly ten now." 

" No, you 're joking. Ten o'clock. My word, 
it 's true. Oh, there, get up all of you. It 's ten 
o'clock. And that salaud of a Dedouche has n't 
lighted the fire. Come, come, hurry up, the lieu- 
tenant is coming! " 

And as though this were the magic word, the 
[7] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

lieutenant came in, leaving the door wide open 
behind him. It was time; they were almost 
suffocated. 

The lieutenant was a large man, thin and well 
set up. His bearing indicated resolution. His 
brown hair was cut very short, according to the 
regulations. A close-cropped black moustache 
streaked his sunburned face. The general effect 
of his personality was that of a man cool and 
headstrong. 

" Oh, he has the coolness of a Colonial," the 
machine gunners repeated ad nauseam. 

"Isn't there any way to get you up?" ex- 
claimed the lieutenant. " You ought to be 
ashamed of yourselves. It 's after ten o'clock." 

Then he saw me through the cloud of smoke 
and questioned me with a glance. The quarter- 
master broke in before I could reply, 

" It 's the mounted intelligence officer, Lieu- 
tenant." 

"Oh, good! . . . Good morning. . . . 
Welcome." 

He extended a large, vigorous hand v/hich con- 
firmed the first impression of his personality — 
frankness and will. 

[8] 



THE SEARCH FOR MY COMPANY 

"Have you found a place for your horse?" 
he asked. 

" Not yet, Lieutenant. I Ve just come." 

I pointed out Kiki through the door to the 
courtyard where he waited, stoically and calmly, 
under the snow. Perhaps he remembered the 
times not long ago that he waited for hours at 
the doors of the ranch under more wintry winds. 
Perhaps he imagined that he was still waiting for 
the rough Canadian pioneer who tarried for long 
discussions about business, warming himself the 
while with whiskey. At any rate Kiki waited 
stoically and quietly. He scarcely condescended 
to welcome us by a glance when I presented him 
to the lieutenant, who stroked his head. 

" This is Kiki, Lieutenant. I don't know his 
real name, for his record bore only his number, 
but that fits him and he seems to like it. He is 
a Canadian, seven years old, thin but strong, very 
gentle and a good jumper." 

*' He 's pretty. Come along. We '11 put him 
in with mine. They '11 get along all right to- 
gether." 

So I took Kiki by the bridle and the lieutenant 
and I went along talking, until we reached an 

[9] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

improvised stable where the officer's horse and 
his groom were quartered. 

Zebre was a great brown horse, with a huge, 
calm face. Everything here certainly gives an 
impression of calmness. 

I took leave of the officer for the time being 
and returned to the quartermaster's, where a 
steaming soup and scalding coffee were waiting 
for me. It was nearly noon and I had eaten noth- 
ing hot for the last forty-eight hours. It was 
four above zero and it was time. 



[lO] 



CHAPTER II 

THE QUARTERMASTER'S BILLETS 

1WAS seated under a shed of loose boards in 
the courtyard of Cantonment No. 77, and 
just tasting some excellent macaroni which the 
cook had warmed up for me, when Dedouche, 
the orderly, came to find me. 

" Say, Sergeant," he asked, " are you the in- 
telligence officer? " 

The title of " sergeant " sounds strange in the 
ears of a cavalryman, and I felt a little hurt in 
my esprit de corps; but I at once answered De- 
douche's summons, for the orderly, In spite of 
being at the beck and call of everyone, enjoys 
a certain prestige. He has a real importance, 
small though it be, but an importance which car- 
ries weight when he gives his opinion in the dis- 
cussions of the " little staff " of the company. 

This staff is the household of the quarter- 
master's billets. With some slight differences it 
is in general composed of the quartermaster- 

[II] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

sergeant, lacking a sergeant-major which com- 
panies of machine guns rarely have, a quarter- 
master-corporal, an adjutant and a mess corporal. 
I was admitted to the honor of taking part in 
the discussions of the staff on account of the 
detached and unusual character of my duties. 

But Dedouche was summoning me. I turned 
and observed him leisurely. Dedouche is an ex- 
cellent fellow. Without even knowing him one 
would guess it at first glance. He is good- 
natured, never in a hurry, no matter how urgent 
his errand, and indifferent alike to blows and 
invectives. He smiles under torrents of abuse 
and threats of the most terrible punishments, and 
does his duty as man of all work silently. In a 
word, he possesses all the qualities inherent in 
his duty. He is tall and spare; his face is beard- 
less and sanctimonious; his eyes smile, but they 
look far away under his great round glasses with 
their large rims. All in all Dedouche looks like 
a lay brother. To complete the illusion, when 
he talks he has a habit of thrusting his hands 
into the large sleeves of his jacket and lowering 
his head to look over his spectacles. In civil life 
Dedouche was an assistant in a pharmacy in one 

[12] 



THE QUARTERMASTER'S BILLETS 

of the large provincial cities. He knows the art 
of making up learned formulae. His long slim 
fingers manage the most fragile things with skill, 
and his grave voice is accustomed to the mezzo- 
tints of the laboratory. 

" Yes," I answered at last, " it is L" 

" The lieutenant wants you." 

I gulped down my plate of macaroni in two 
mouthfuls, swallowed the coffee which the cook, 
already attentive to my wants, held out to me, 
and followed Dedouche the two hundred yards 
which separated us from the billets. 

Two hundred yards is nothing, and yet it is 
a world. In less time than it takes to tell it I 
learned a mass of things from Dedouche. 

First, what part of the country we are from. 
The . . . first Colonials was organized in the 
South. So, in the hope of finding in each new- 
comer another " countryman," Dedouche asked 
the new arrival at once, 

" What part of the country are you from? " 

He had some doubt about my reply. A Hussar 
of a regiment with an unknown number, who had 
given little opportunity to study his accent, might 
be a man from the North or the East. ** One 

[13] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

never knows with these cavalrymen," he seemed 
to say, " they 're so uncertain." So he changed 
the form and varied his traditional question 
somewhat, 

" You 're not from the South, by chance, 
Sergeant? " 

At this repetition of his offense about my title, 
I thought that I ought to slip in a discreet ob- 
servation, so I said, 

" In the cavalry, my friend, the sergeant is 
called ' marechal des logis' " And then having 
satisfied my slightly offended esprit de corps, I 
replied, " Yes, mon vieiix, I am from the South, 
in fact from the Mediterranean, from L'Herault." 

" How things happen ! " exclaimed Dedouche. 
" I 'm from Le Clapas." 

Le Clapas is the nickname given to Montpellier 
in the territory. And at that there came all at 
once a bewildering flow of words. Dedouche 
began to tell me, mixing it all up in an incredible 
confusion, about his birthplace, his adventures, 
his former regular occupation, in the depths of 
a pharmacy in a small street under the shadow 
of the University, his transfer from the auxiliary 
to active service, his wound in Champagne. All 

[14] 



THE QUARTERMASTER'S BILLETS 

this was interspersed with frequent exclamations 
and repetitions, " Say, tell me, Marechal, will 
this war ever be over? " and then regrets for his 
home land, " Say, tell me, Logis, would n't it be 
better down there in the good sun?" 

In these different attempts to get nearer to the 
term " marechal de loj^is,^^ I observed Dedouche's 
obvious good will, but what interested me most 
was a little advance knowledge about the 
company. 

So Dedouche sketched in a few words a picture 
of it, which was absolutely accurate, as I was 
able to appreciate later. 

" The lieutenant is a very chic type. No one 
would think to look at him that he is from the 
South, too. He appears cold and hard, like that, 
but it 's not natural; he puts it on. He 's good- 
hearted at bottom. He 's a Basque and is n't 
afraid of anything. You ought to have seen him 
in Champagne at Massiges. Oh, and then we 
have besides his fellow countryman, Sub-Lieu- 
tenant Delpos, a blond. He's not here now; 
he 's down at Morcourt with the echelon. He 's 
a type too, not stuck-up, but he 's agreeable and 
good-humored. 

[15] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

" Oh, those in the billets," Dedouche sketched 
with a vague wave of the hand, as if to say some- 
thing like this: "They're of no importance; 
they 're brothers, friends, and not worth talking 
about." Perhaps his gesture meant something 
else, but that 's what I thought it meant. 

And as if he were responding to my implied 
question, he went on : 

" — there is only the drummer who 's from 
the South, too; he 's what they call the ' quarter- 
master corporal,' I don't know why. He 's a 
good fellow, but he does not talk. At least he 
only talks rarely, and he 's from Marseilles, too; 
no one would think it to see him. He makes 
me mad most of the time. 

"Oh, the rest! The corporal of infantry is 
from Paris. I don't know him. He only came 
five or six days ago. He has n't told us anything 
yet ; he only sings. And what songs ! Good God, 
they 're enough to make one blush ! 

" The juteux — the adjutant," interrupted De- 
douche, for he rarely used slang. With the ex- 
ception of " pinard " and " tacot^ which have 
become hallowed and have taken an official place 
even in the most refined language of the armies, 

[16] 



THE QUARTERMASTER'S BILLETS 

Dedouche rarely used a vulgar or misplaced word 
in his conversation. This was not because he was 
opposed to it nor from false modesty, but be- 
cause his occupation as a *' scientist " had given 
him the habit of using good language. 

*' The adjutant," went on Dedouche, " he 's 
not an adjutant. He 's a brother, a father, a 
friend, a man, what! Never a word of anger, 
never a punishment, always agreeable and kind. 
And in spite of that he 's had a career. He 's 
been in Morocco, China, and Madagascar, and 
no one knows where else. He 's been in the 
service eleven years, but you would n't think it 
to look at him." 

This running biography brought us to the open 
door which framed the lieutenant's tall figure. 

" Say, Margis " (the lieutenant knew his mili- 
tary terminology and this abbreviation was not 
without zest), "are you rested from your 
journey? " 

** I was n't tired, Lieutenant." 

" How about your horse? " 

" No more than I was. Do you think that 
after three days stretched out on the straw in 
his car, without moving ... ? " 

[17] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

*' Then, if you are willing, we '11 both go to the 
echelon." 

" All right, Lieutenant." 

A question must have framed itself on my face, 
for he added almost at once : 

*' Yes, the echelon, the fighting train, the cav- 
alry. You '11 be more at home there. We left 
it below at Morcourt, seven or eight miles away, 
on account of the shells that fall here sometimes. 
Horses, you know, cost more than men, so we 
have to economize them. It is understood, then? 
We '11 go about noon. Saddle both horses. Meet 
me here." 

Then he strode off and joined a group of offi- 
cers who were coming up the main street of the 
village to the church. 

Dedouche was already full of attention for 
me — just think of a man from home on the 
" little staff " — and he now burst forth eagerly: 

" Don't trouble yourself, Logis. I '11 tell the 
groom to saddle the horses and bring them here." 

The smoke still persisted in the dark, littered 
confusion of the room, but combined with it now 
was an odor of burnt grease mixed with the 
moldy smell of a ragout with onions and strong 

[i8] 



THE QUARTERMASTER'S BILLETS 

cheese. In addition, spread out on the table, were 
the remnants of a meal, which had just been 
finished, the rolls, the account books and reports. 

The quartermaster-corporal, the silent fellow 
from Marseilles, immersed in reading Le Soleil 
du Midi, did not even condescend to look up. In 
response to my friendly good-by, he let a scarcely 
perceptible " adieu " slip through his lips. 

The quartermaster was stretched out on a dirty 
mattress thrown on the ground, and juggling two 
packages of English cigarettes, while he sang at 
the top of his lungs — and what a voice he had! 
— the latest song: 

Mes amis J dans la vie 
Faut fa ire des economies 

Les journaux vous I'ont dit. 
C'est aussi mon avis. 

This intellectual refrain must have given him 
extreme pleasure, for he began it again and again 
without any interruption. 

" Well," I said, " judging from the looks of 
things, you aren't often disturbed here?" 

At this the drummer cast me a searching look, 
cold, disdainful and commiserating, as much as 
to say to me, 

[19] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

" One can see that you Ve just come I " 
As for the quartermaster, he replied to every- 
thing in the repertoire of the Eldorado. Without 
stopping his jugghng, he shouted at me in his 
amazing voice : 

Mot! je m'en fous, 
Je reste tranquil' ment 
Dans mon trou! . . . 

He was going on when the infernal noise of 
some aerial trolley tore through space. 

" Attention ! " he cried, without moving from 
his mattress. " There 's the Metro! " 

Almost at the same moment, a great shell, a 
"310" at least, burst in the court of the house 
opposite, demolished the roof, and crushed a 
dozen horses. 

The adjutant was just crossing the street and 
he stopped at the door to estimate the damage. 

" They missed the steeple again," he said, with 
a disdainful shrug for the Boche artillery. 

And Morin, the drummer, by way of commen- 
tary, without interrupting his reading: 

" Close the door. If they send any more shells, 
that will make a draft." 

[20] 



CHAPTER III 

THE ECHELON 

FROM Proyart to Morcourt is five miles by a 
crossroad which in its many curves and wind- 
ings cuts across trenches, communication trenches 
and barbed wire. 

The snow had stopped, but it still covered the 
ground, the trees and the farms with its regular 
white covering. The communication trenches 
showed black on this vast screen. 

The crows circled in innumerable flights and 
sought in vain for the carrion which had been so 
abundant for months and which, to-day, was 
buried. 

We went along, boot to boot, slowly, for the 
roads were slippery. Kiki wanted to dance about, 
for the keen air made him lively. But Z^bre's 
sedateness dismayed him, and Kiki wisely ranged 
alongside and regulated the pace by his. 

The lieutenant talked but little — a few de- 
tached words, chopped phrases, about the com- 

[21] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

pany, an observation on the weather, a reflection 
on the horses. 

The road was almost deserted save for a few 
Territorials, muffled in their sheepskins, who 
dragged along their heavy wooden shoes which 
were made even higher by a thick sole of snow. 
From time to time a company wagon, driven like 
an express train, grazed us with its wheels and 
splashed us with mud. 

Then, abruptly, without having had to climb the 
slightest hill, we saw Morcourt, as one sees sud- 
denly from the top of a cliff the sea at his feet, in 
the midst of the thousand windings of the Somme, 
of the canal and the turf-pits. Morcourt Is a vil- 
lage scarcely as large as Proyart, and like it hid- 
den in a gully sheltered from the winds on all 
sides, and also like it, hidden under the snow. 

A blacksmith had set up his forge in the open 
air against the walls of a tottering tile-kiln. All 
around the snow had melted in great black puddles 
where the waiting horses had pawed the ground. 
The smoke from his fire rose red-tinted and dark 
in the heavy air which seemed to muffle the ring 
of the hammers on the anvil. 

We come to a stop before a house nearly in 

[22] 



THE ECHELON 

ruins, whose tottering remains are a constant men- 
ace. A corporal rushes out — nimble, short and 
thick-set, a small Basque cap binding his sunburned 
forehead — and then some men come from the 
neighboring stables. 

The houses in the country which were invaded 
for a short time and in which troops have had 
their cantonments for long weary months all look 
alike. Their doors and windows are gone, but 
these are replaced by tent canvas. 

The drivers of the echelon and the war train 
in the machine-gun companies are nearly always 
sailors, the older classes of the Territorials, who 
after many changes have been assigned to the 
Colonial regiments. No one knows why, but it is 
probably because the bureaucratic, stay-at-home 
mental worker finds some relationship between the 
Colonials and the sea. And so they make these 
men, accustomed to the management of ships, 
infantrymen, or drivers, or even cavalrymen. But 
with the unfailing readiness and the ingenuity 
of their kind they make up so much for all that, 
that far from appearing unready and badly 
placed, one would say that they were veterans al- 
ready broken to all the tricks of the trade. 

[23] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

Their long ship voyages and the necessities of 
critical hours have taught them to replace with 
the means at hand most things in material exist- 
ence. From an old preserve box and a branch of 
a tree, squared and split with a hatchet, they make 
a strong and convenient table. With a scantling 
and a bit of wire lattice taken from a fence, they 
make an elastic mattress which, covered with 
straw and canvas, becomes a very comfortable 
bed. 

The sailor is carpenter: the hatchet in his hand 
takes the place of the most ingenious tools of the 
joiner; painter: he has painted and refitted his boat 
from its tarry keel to the scroll work of the bul- 
warks and the figures and the beloved words they 
put on the stern; mender: he mends his sails and 
nets artistically; cook: during the long days at sea 
on his frail craft with its limited accommodations, 
he makes the most savory dishes from the fruits 
of his fishing and a few simple spices. His quali- 
ties and his knowledge are numerous and wide: 
astronomer and healer, and, as well, singer of 
beautiful songs which cradle his thought at the 
will of the rhythms, as the sea rocks his boat at 
the will of the waves. 

[24] 



THE ECHELON 

But in this multiplicity of talents he lacks that 
of a driver, and what is more, a driver of a 
machine gun. That is a job which combines the 
heavy and the mountain artillery. A machine- 
gun driver should be able to drive in the saddle 
the leading team of horses and put the heavy 
caisson of ammunition through the most difficult 
evolutions. Again, he should be able to drive on 
foot the mule loaded with his pack-saddle and 
through the most impossible and sometimes the 
most dangerous paths. 

We had scarcely begun to swallow a cup of 
thick, smoking, regulation coffee in a room of the 
cantonment, furnished with special skill, when Sub- 
Lieutenant Delpos — smart, carefree, smiling, a 
cap on the back of his head and a song on his 
lips — arrived. 

Dedouche's description seemed to me to be ex- 
act. He was indeed a very young man, very quick, 
very blond and very gay. He was already an 
officer when others of his age had scarcely left 
college; he was already a hero counting in his 
active service a thousand feats of prowess when 
his rather sceptical contemporaries were content 
to read about them in books. Open merriment 

[25] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

shone in his eyes. He had gained his promotion 
in the field far from the stifling atmosphere of 
study halls. Yesterday he was still a sergeant in 
Madagascar, Senegal, and Morocco; to-day he 
is an officer who has fought since the beginning 
of the Great War; to-morrow he will be a trainer 
of men. He knows them all; many are his old 
bedfellows or companions of the column. His 
remarks are keen and unrhetorical and they please 
the men. They love him and fear him; they are 
free with him and respect him. They know that 
he understands his trade perfectly and that they 
can deceive him in nothing. 

Our introduction was short and unceremonious. 
A man brought on the table a bottle of very sweet 
Moselle wine, which is christened at the front 
" Champagne." It was one of those wines which 
make up for their qualities by such pompous ap- 
pellations and well-intentioned labels as " Cham- 
pagne de la Victory," " Champagne de la Re- 
venge," " of the Allies," " of the Poilu," " of 
GI017." They are all equally bad, but they make 
a loud noise when the cork is drawn and most of 
the wine flows away in sparkling foam. 

We drained our cups to the common health, 
[26] 



THE ECHELON 

and to the success and certain glory of the 
company. 

Then the lieutenant, who has memories of the 
drama, said in a voice which recalled the tones 
of the already classic Carbon de Casteljaloux, his 
neighbor, 

" Since my company has, I believe, reached its 
full number, shall we not show it to the logis, if 
you please? " 

Under the rays of an anemic sun which had 
waited until the hour of sunset before it deigned 
to appear, we made a brief visit to the echelon. 

First the roll; five corporal muleteers or 
drivers: Raynal, the owner of a vineyard in 
Gironde; Liniers, a salesman of wines and spirits 
and a great elector in the Twelfth Arrondisse- 
ment; Glanais, Bonecase, Glorieu, carpenter, 
vine-grower, and farmer — and none of them had 
ever managed a horse in his life. 

And the men — one in fifty is a cavalryman — 
but that one is perfect. He was trained at the 
cavalry school at Saumur; trained horses and bred 
them, so they at once turned him over to the eche- 
lon, where he had to lead a mule by the bridle. 
That, of course, was a reproach to his old trade, 

[27] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

so in default of any other satisfaction it taught 
him the philosophy of resignation and peaceful 
blessedness. 

The cavalry 1 

" Oh, the cavalry, that 's been posing five min- 
utes," said Sub-Lieutenant Delpos — he was ex- 
tremely fond of that expression. 

There were horses and mules varying in age 
from five to seventeen. They were all sensible, 
settled down, their legs somewhat worn out, and 
more accustomed to the hearse than to a caisson, 
and more familiar with the song of the worker 
than with the roar of cannon. They were all 
gentle, only demanding oats and straw; some with 
their bones sticking out of their hides, while others 
were still sleek and shiny from their warm stables 
and fresh straw; all unconscious of what awaited 
them on the morrow. 

One of the mules was a veteran, an enormous, 
cunning animal. His hair was short and rough, 
and in places there were great patches where the 
hide showed. His skin was hung on a project- 
ing framework of bones, and, although he was 
well fed, he was very thin — with a thinness so 
unyielding to rations that it was impossible to 

[28] 



THE ECHELON 

get him fat. His head was that of an epicurean 
philosopher with deep mocking eyes. This was 
Chocolate. 

Chocolate is beyond the time when he has an 
age. The oldest soldiers in the regiment have 
always known him, even at Marrakech and Rab- 
bat in Morocco. 

Chocolate has made many campaigns during 
his active service and he has received several 
wounds as well. 

The story goes that one day in Morocco Choco- 
late got loose from the bivouac, and started 
browsing on the grass and wild oats in an am- 
buscade — between two fires. Absolutely indif- 
ferent to the crackling of bullets which he had 
known from infancy, he continued to lop off the 
plants until the pernicious bullets began to graze 
his skin. Then he stretched out at full length in 
a hollow in the sand and browsed on the grass 
within reach of his teeth, while he waited the 
end of the adventure. Then he went back to 
the bivouac in search of a pail of water and a bag 
of oats. 

Now Chocolate is the file leader. He indicates 
by his example to the horses whom the pack-saddle 

[29] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

galls that the best way of carrying it is to avoid 
romping to the right and the left, shifting about, 
and trotting, in fact, all movements which mis- 
place the saddle or wrinkle the skin beneath. The 
secret is to work soberly, slowly and at an even 
pace. 

Chocolate belongs to a family of mules which 
ranks high in history. The broad, rounded backs 
of his ancestors have borne debonnair sovereigns, 
preacher monks, magnificent Sultans and Sancho 
Panzas, baskets of vegetables and cans of milk. 
To-day Chocolate, their descendant, carries an 
infernal instrument — a machine gun. But what 
matters that to him? The road rolls on before 
him and he follows it. There are oats at the 
end, to-night or to-morrow, what difference does 
it make? 

" He is cool," the drivers say. Coolness is the 
great secret of the Colonials. 

Coolness, indifference to danger, bad weather, 
adversity, obstacles, death — no nervousness, no 
useless bursts of anger, no dangerous hurrying, 
no false starts. It is necessary to go — they will 
go — they arrive. That is all. 

[30] 



CHAPTER IV 

THE SONG OF THE MACHINE GUN 

DEDOUCHE brings me a note to sign for 
on the report book. It reads: 

" The non-commissioned officers will assemble 
their sections in the courtyard of Cantonment 
No. 77 at 2.30. Each gun captain will present 
his gun. Service marching order, with masks and 
arms." 

I sign mechanically to please Dedouche, who 
thinks he is showing me a special favor by offer- 
ing me the first reading of all orders and reports. 
But this one interests me but little, for I have 
neither arms nor guns to present. So it is as a 
spectator that I am present at the lieutenant's 
inspection. This time I shall see the complete 
company. 

I find myself at the appointed hour at Canton- 
ment 77. 

One must have lived in these remains of vil- 
lages, which persist in standing, near the lines 

[31] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

to have an exact idea of what they are. In these 
villages furious combats have taken place in the 
streets, from house to house, and for two years 
they have been occupied and overpopulated — a 
hamlet of one hundred and fifty inhabitants often 
serves as a cantonment for ten thousand men — 
by men of all arms of the service, from all regions, 
of all colors. 

It is not ruin in all its tragic horror and majesty. 
It is worse. 

It is something which appears to want to live, 
but which a latent leprosy eats away. Often 
there are traces of shells, the splatter of bullets, 
the marks of fire; the roofs may have fallen in 
from the recent shelling, but even yet the general 
effect is that the houses on the streets are still 
standing. 

The fronts of these houses, made of straw 
and mud, with only a large door swinging on its 
hinges, are whole. Of course the mud has often 
been scratched in long, leprous wounds, and the 
straw tumbles out leaving the bare skeleton of 
worm-eaten wood; and, besides, the windows are 
without the glass, which has been broken to bits by 
the explosion of shells, and which is replaced by 

[32] 



SONG OF THE MACHINE GUN 

bits of paper or by calendars. But the real ruin 
is inside. 

Here is the work of the carelessness and negli- 
gence of the wandering multitudes who pass that 
way, who arrive at evening, tired, muddy, wet, 
who fall asleep on damp straw, cut to pieces and 
crawling with vermin, and who go on the next 
day, or three days later, leaving as a mark of 
their passing a greater stench and a greater 
dilapidation. 

The ruin is inside. It is not the beautiful end- 
ing of destruction by fire, but the slow death by 
cancer which eats away, by gangrene which mounts 
from the cattle sheds to the stable, from the stable 
to the barn, and from the barn to the hearth. And 
at last a day comes when the front alone is stand- 
ing on the ruin of the annihilated house, and then 
men who are passing by, seeing that it is tottering 
and dangerous, cut it down with blows of the 
axe and chop the wood into bits for their little 
needs. 

And so these houses die: houses which under 
their humble appearance had great souls palpi- 
tating with life, where lives were born and passed 
their years; where joys and griefs exclaimed and 

[33] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

wept, where the peasant, the son of the soil, drew 
from this soil, the generatrix of strong races, the 
re-vivifying harvests which he stored away in 
the barn which to-day is dead. 

Whole villages and great villages agonize in 
this way through months of wearing away, and 
their end is no less terrible, no less majestic, no 
less pitiful than of those villages with glorious 
names which the wrath of shells beats into dust. 

Cantonment 77 is made up of those houses 
which waste away. Between the fragile walls, 
notched by an empty barn and a fallen shed, opens 
a courtyard. Filth spreads out in a vast pool on 
which float among the refuse a pile of garbage, 
boxes, the waste of cooking and greasy papers. 

In the corner of a recess open to every wind, 
on piles of briclcs held together by iron bars pulled 
from the window sills, the cook has set his pots 
and bowls in line. His fire of wood so green that 
the sap oozes out licks the already blackened walls 
with its long flames. 

All that offers even a precarious shelter — a 
roof — is occupied by the men who crowd in there 
on old, filthy straw, and on the meager rations 
of fresh straw, often too fresh. And as the tiles 

[34] 



SONG OF THE MACHINE GUN 

and thatch let the rain filter through, they stretch 
above them strips of tent canvas. 

Oh, blessed canvas ! To what uses is it not put ! 
It serves as a roof against bad weather, the rain 
and snow; a protection against dampness, mud 
and vermin; planted on two stakes, stretched to 
a door casing, it protects the fires for cooking 
from draughts; in the more comfortable canton- 
ments in the rear, where the straw is clean and 
abundant, where the men are at last able to take 
oH their shoes, and their muddy leggings and their 
trousers heavy with dampness, it serves as the bed 
clothes; and, finally, at the last hour it is in the 
tent canvas that they collect the bodies with their 
torn and shattered limbs. It serves as shroud and 
coffin. And, faithful to its role, it is the last 
shelter. 

The men began to arrive by groups almost in 
order, at any rate as much so as the littered 
ground in the courtyard would permit. They as- 
sembled by sections in a half circle around the 
pool of filth. It was certainly a picturesque sight 
when, at the command " Attention," these men 
mounted a faultless guard around this fetid pool, 
where, among papers, tossed about and dirty, and 

[35] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

box covers, there floated, bloated and fetid, all 
kinds of carrion, the rats of the last hecatomb. 

Near the doorway on the largest and cleanest 
part of the courtyard the eight machine guns were 
drawn up in line. 

Eight machine guns, the armament of the 
company. 

Eight guns, so small, so fine, and such bits of 
workmanship, that one would think to see them 
that they were a child's playthings. 

The machine guns appeared very coquettish and 
pretty as they rested on their bluish-gray tripod, 
with their steel barrels well burnished even to the 
mouth of their muzzles. They hardly appeared 
at all threatening with the polished leather of 
the breech, where the bronzed fist of the gun 
layer stood out in graceful designs, and the 
attenuated round and svelte circles of the 
radiator. 

And the machine gun is a coquette, too. Under 
its appearance of delicacy and grace it conceals a 
terrible power of domination and strength. Yet 
it hurls pitiless death without noise, with a rapid- 
ity as furtive as a shout of laughter, with a tac-tac 
which is scarcely perceptible and which is no more 

[36] 







«X0 



SONG OF THE MACHINE GUN 

menacing than the familiar tac-tac of the sewing- 
machine or the typewriter. 

And the machine gun is a coquette, too ! Fash- 
ioned like a work of art, the brilliancy of its 
polished steel and the voluptuous roundness of the 
brass invite caresses. Its shots come from they 
know not where, since they can see nothing — 
a bush is sufficient to conceal it; light, it is here one 
minute and there another; it is not visible until 
one is almost upon it, yet its shots are fatal at 
some miles. 

It is delicate and costly, needing a hundred 
things for its adornment, skilled care for its 
toilet and a hundred men to serve. Is not the 
machine gun a coquette? 

As the Company Casanova is of recent forma- 
tion it received an entirely new armament of the 
latest model. The guns are built on the Hotch- 
kiss system — the last word of perfection in war. 
They are light, scarcely fifty pounds, and they are 
easy to manipulate skilfully. The rapidity of their 
fire is extreme, more than five hundred shots a 
minute, and their adjustment is such that they 
can fire on the most varied objects. First, there 
is blockade fire, which concentrates all the shots 

[37] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

on a narrow point; then the sweeping fire, which 
sweeps the whole of an extended field; and finally, 
Indirect fire, which hits its designated target with 
mathematical precision, at the same time con- 
cealing the source. 

The machine gun Is the little queen of battles. 
One may smile to look at her, but one shudders 
when he thinks of her ravages. 

And the men are proud of their guns. 

I observe them while the lieutenant speaks to 
them and their eyes look alternately at the lieuten- 
ant and at their respective guns. They know their 
gun; they love her; possess her. They have con- 
fidence in her, and it is she who defends them. 

To-day there are about one hundred and fifty 
men grouped In the same specialty, from all 
regions, all regiments, all arms, who have come 
after more or less lengthy stays in the instruction 
camps at Nice, Clermont, and La Valbonne. 

Their specialty has created among them a cer- 
tain sort of affinity, a family characteristic. Ma- 
chine gunners are an element apart, a sort of 
elite. In their ranks there is a certain homogene- 
ity which comes from the practice of the same 
competency which Is nearly a science. They feel 

[38] 



SONG OF THE MACHINE GUN 

somewhat superior to, at least different from, the 
ordinary companies. 

They appreciate the worth of their distinction 
and scarcely ever associate with other troops. 
The companies of infantry are swamped in a bat- 
talion, while the companies of machine guns are 
isolated, autonomous, directly dependent on the 
commanding officer, and they enjoy an absolute 
initiative in a battle. Finally, they are not anony- 
mous or numbered; they are not called the fifth, 
seventh, or the twelfth, but the " Company Casa- 
nova," as they once said Royal-Piemont or Prince 
Conde. 

Then, too, there is their insignia. The insignia 
is the bauble, the jewel, of the soldier. It is a real 
satisfaction to have something on the uniform 
which distinguishes one from his neighbor. To 
such a point do they carry this that many cannot 
resist putting on insignia to which they have n't 
the slightest right. And none of the insignia 
arouses greater envy than the two small inter- 
secting cannons of the machine guns. 

It takes one hundred and fifty men, two oflScers, 
ten non-commissioned ofl'icers, and sixty horses to 
serve, supply and transport the eight small guns, 

[39] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

one hundred and fifty men trained and Inured to 
hardship. There is none here who has not been 
in several battles and received several wounds in 
his active service. There is none here who has 
not a good record. When said of one that means 
little, but when said of all it is worth telling. 

There are artillerymen, cavalrymen, and 
sailors who have become foot soldiers through 
their different changes; and not only are all arms 
represented, but all professions, all classes and 
all temperaments. Jacquet, a poet and musician, 
a dreamer with an exquisite soul, is an accurate 
gun layer. Finger drives milk wagons in Paris, 
but with his gigantic hands he manipulates with 
delicacy the wheelwork of his Hotchkiss. Mil- 
lazo, who behind his counter at Hanoi" showed 
gracefully the jewels of Indo-Chinese art and 
learned at Lure the meticulous art of watchmak- 
ing, now manages a " sweeping " fire as calmly 
and accurately as he used to mount a spiral spring 
on its microscopic pivot. Corporal Vial, who 
used to verify accounts in the luxurious banks on 
the Riviera and handle tinkling gold and checks, 
here shows that he knows the science of fire and 
his machine and leads his squad with authority. 

[40] 



SONG OF THE MACHINE GUN 

Charlet drove the heavy locomotives on the rail- 
ways of the North; Gamie regulated the powerful 
looms in the textile factories, and they both owe 
to their knowledge of mechanics their duties as 
range takers. Imbert was a fisherman and, as 
he knows how to cook a savory bouillabaisse, he 
is assigned to the difficult role of cook and acquits 
himself conscientiously and well. However, 
Chevalier, an expert in geometry, who for twenty 
years grew pale in profound studies of logarithms 
and co-ordinates, here assumes the duties of mess 
corporal, and discusses with asperity the supplies 
and remarks pitilessly on the regulation cup of 
wine and the mathematical pounds and ounces of 
mutton, lard and beans. 

In spite of what one might think, this odd col- 
lection of men Is as homogeneous as could be 
Imagined. This comes from the fact that above 
all this different knowledge is a uniform purpose, 
because all these multiple alliances tend toward a 
common end which Is incarnated in their chief, 
a man from the South, who is expansive and im- 
petuous, but who curbs his temperament under 
the rigid calm of a man from the North, one of 
the common people, a son of the soil, who has 

[41] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

risen to the rank of officer, and a commanding 
officer at that, solely through persistency and 
courage. 

When the lieutenant had finished his rapid but 
close inspection, and had examined with the eye 
of a connoisseur the condition and repair of the 
guns, he took in the whole company with a look, 
for it is his work which he commands with firm- 
ness and which he loves. He is already going, 
after addressing a few remarks to the adjutant 
and the classic, " All right. Break ranks," when 
a man steps out of the ranks and comes towards 
him. 

" Lieutenant, the company is now completely 
equipped and armed, but there is, however, still 
something lacking." 

" Indeed," replied the lieutenant, " and what 's 
that?" 

" Its marching song." 

" Its marching song! Have you chosen one? " 

" Chosen one ! Oh, no ! We have an unpub- 
lished one, as new as the company itself, com- 
posed for us and created by us. Will you do us 
the honor of listening to it? " 

[42] 



SONG OF THE MACHINE GUN 

"Will I? The devil. I ask it; I demand it. 
I want to learn it, too. Go on. Start it! " he 
exclaimed. 

And then Gaix turned towards his comrades 
and began to sing in his great deep baritone voice 
our marching song, " Ma Mitrailleuse," which 
each section had learned secretly and which they 
sang together for the first time to-day. 

On a rhythm taken from some war rnarch, some 
one had composed simple words, which were 
nevertheless image-provoking and vibrant, where 
the alternating motet " Ma Mitrailleuse," sung 
in chorus, sounds like a bugle call. 

This marching song is one of those which en- 
grave themselves at once on the memory and in 
the heart, which are never forgotten, for in their 
accents are rooted the strongest impressions of 
the hours lived in the simple brotherhood of arms, 
the memory of dangers encountered together, the 
pride of victories, and the pious homage to those 
who sang it with us and whose manly voices were 
silenced forever in the night of battles. 

And I find in writing it the same deep stir- 
ring emotion that I experienced when I first 
heard it. 

[43] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

MA MITRAILLEUSE 

Sur notre front, dans ton abri, 
Tu dors sur ton trepied bleu gris, 
Calme dans I'ombre vaporeuse. 

Ma mitrailleuse. 
Et ton canon d'acier bleui 
Benoitement perce la nuit. 
Que tu parais peu dangereuse, 

Ma mitrailleuse. 

Si parfois en te transportant 

Je trouve ton poids fatigant, 

Et dis tout bas " la sacre gueuse! " 

Ma mitrailleuse, 
Pardonne-moi, car j'ai grand tort, 
Sachant que tu chantes la mort 
De VAllcmagne furieuse. 

Ma mitrailleuse. 

Mais dans le petit jour blemi, 
Alerte! Voici I'enncmi! 
Et t'eveillant soudain rageuse. 

Ma mitrailleuse, 
Avec tes tac tac reguliers 
Fauche les Bodies par mil Hers, 
Sans t'arreter, noire et fumeuse. 

Ma mitrailleuse. 

Et comme nous elle attendra 
Le grand jour qui declanchera 
L'offensive victorieuse. 
Ma mitrailleuse. 

[44] 



SONG OF THE MACHINE GUN 

Poursuivant le bandit germain, 
J'entendrai sur les bords du Rhin, 
Au grand soleilj claquer joyeuse 
Ma mitrailleuse. 

When the last accents, sung by the men at the 
top of their lungs, died away, there was silence 
and I looked at the lieutenant. 

He was seated on a staircase, with his head 
leaning on his clenched fists. He had listened to 
the whole song, and now he remained for a 
moment as if waiting. And when he stood up 
his eyes were slightly red and his lips concealed 
under a smile the impress of intense emotion. 

" It is good," he said, " very beautiful, my 
friends, and I congratulate you all. Your song 
is admirable, it will go with us everywhere, and 
we will lead it to victory. But who is the author? 
There must be an author. The devil, there must 
be an author! " 

There was a moment of silence as if each one 
hesitated to reply, but a big sergeant cried out 
in a stentorian voice : 

" A ban for the author. Lieutenant Delpos, and 
a couplet for him besides." 

Then the men broke all alignment, pressed 
[45] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

around their young sub-lieutenant, joyous, proud 
and blushing with pleasure, weeping with joy, and 
burst out at the top of their lungs, with inde- 
scribable feeling, which showed all their strength, 
their will for victory and their unbreakable 
confidence : 

Et comme nous elle attendra 
Le grand jour qui declanchera 
L'offensive victorieuse. 

Ma mitrailleuse. 
Poursivant le bandit germain, 
J'entendrai sur les bords du Rhin, 
Au grand soleil, claquer joyeuse 

Ma mitrailleuse. 

Then, amidst the applause and the " vivats," 
the lieutenant embraced his young friend vigor- 
ously and said: 

" Nom de Dieu ! You did n't tell me that you 
were a poet. I congratulate you." 

And taking him by the arm, he went off joyous, 
skipping like a gamin, taking up again the in- 
spiring refrain : 

Ma Mitrailleuse . . . Ma Mitrailleuse! 



[46] 



CHAPTER V 

A RECONNAISSANCE IN THE FOG 

ONE evening the lieutenant said to me a little 
after dinner: 

" To-morrow, at four o'clock, we 're going to 
the first line trenches to find positions for the 
machine guns. The section leaders are coming, 
and if you want to come, you '11 find it interesting." 

The selection of a machine gun emplacement 
is essentially a delicate task. The Germans are 
past masters in this art. So, in the days of attack 
when our artillery had made a thorough prepara- 
tion and they were convinced that there was noth- 
ing left in front and we could advance without 
trouble, exactly as though taking a walk in a 
square, we found ourselves abruptly right in the 
fire of a Boche machine gun which had not been 
spotted and which was so skilfully camouflaged 
that it had resisted the most terrible bombardment. 

It is necessary above all to find a place which 
commands a wide field of fire and one easy to 

[47] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

play on. It must also be easy to conceal the gun 
in some way, for, if it is once spotted, a shell 
will soon send the gun and its crew pirouetting 
in the air, unless they are forewarned by a shot 
too long or too short, but whose destination is 
unmistakable, and so have time to move. 

It was scarcely daylight when we assembled in 
front of the lieutenant's quarters. 

A fog that could be cut with a knife limited our 
view to a few yards. It was cold. 

Sergeant Lace is there already walking back 
and forth in the fog. He is always exactly punc- 
tual, anyway. He is equipped as if for an as- 
sault with his revolver, mask, and field glasses. 
His chest is covered with numerous colonial deco- 
rations, his military medal and his war cross with 
three palms. 

Lace is a section leader emeritus. He is rough 
and harsh in appearance; he never smiles, or 
rarely; he is tanned from his long stay in the 
colonies, but he does his duty with unfailing ex- 
actness. During an attack in Champagne he found 
himself under the command of his brother, a lieu- 
tenant, who was mortally wounded at his side. 
He embraced him reverently, took the papers, 

[48] 



A RECONNAISSANCE IN THE FOG 

pocketbook and letters from the pockets of his 
jacket, removed his decorations, which were now 
relics, and resumed his place in the ranks. He 
fought all day, attacked a fortified position, as- 
sisted in the dangerous task of clearing a wood, 
and when night came, by the light of star shells 
under a hellish bombardment and a storm of 
shrapnel, he went back and brought out his 
brother's body and gave it proper burial. Lace 
is a soldier and a conscientious one. 

Other silhouettes approach and come out of 
the darkness like ghosts. One is Poirier, a very 
young man, who laughs in the midst of the worst 
dangers, which he absolutely ignores. Then there 
is big Roulle, whom ten years in the tropics did 
not succeed in making thin, and whose breadth 
of shoulder is ill-adapted to the narrowness of 
the communication trenches. Then Pierron comes 
on the run, singing a Neapolitan song. He is 
from Saigon and is homesick for the Asiatic nights, 
whose charms he is forever describing. 

As the hour strikes the lieutenant appears. 

We follow the main road through the fog. 
This leads to Lehons, a ruined village which is 
situated in the lines and cuts the trenches. 

[49] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

One can hardly distinguish the trees in the fields 
either to the right or the left. The dawn is silent. 
Nature wants light for her awakening, but this 
morning the lights persist in staying dim. 

We hear occasionally a cannon shot, as sharp 
as the crack of a whip. It comes from a battery 
of " 75's " concealed in a wood at our side, which 
fires at stated intervals for tactical reasons. The 
shell shatters the air over our heads and all be- 
comes quiet again. 

So we walk along for nearly an hour, some 
grouped together while others dream away by 
themselves. The fog now begins to lighten and 
we are able to see the adjoining fields. They are 
torn with shell holes, the rare trees are shattered 
and slashed, and their branches hang down like 
broken limbs. In the ditches, full of muddy water, 
are piles of material — rolls of barbed wire, eaten 
by rust, chevaux de frise broken to pieces, and 
crossbars and round logs already covered with 
moss. 

Suddenly, there in front of us, at two paces, 
splitting the fog is — the village. There are 
houses — remains of houses — and parts of walls 

[50] 



A RECONNAISSANCE IN THE FOG 

which through some prodigious feat of balance 
persist in remaining upright. 

The first house on the right was apparently of 
some importance. The two master walls still re- 
main in spite of the roof having fallen. Between 
them is a pile of stones, burnt girders, and in the 
middle of the heap of rubbish still stands, intact 
and rigid, pointing straight toward yawning 
heaven, the iron balustrade of a winding staircase. 
A great signboard of black wood runs from one 
wall to the other, apparently holding them to- 
gether, and one might believe that they only re- 
main upright, thanks to it. It is riddled with 
bullets and the flames have licked it as they passed, 
but one can still read the long yellow letters of 
the inscription: 

Lodgings 

Famous Cuisine Comfortable Rooms 

None of us risk an ironical reflection or a 
mocking smile, for to-day we have become ac- 
customed to so many strange inscriptions which 
in disaster are the living lie of their emptiness. 

Opposite, on the other side of the road, the 
military cemetery shows its multitude of crosses. 

[51] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

Their number has exceeded the capacity of the 
site provided for it, and they have already be- 
come masters of the surrounding fields. These 
graves are all immutably alike, and they are built 
and maintained with a fraternal affection by com- 
panies of Territorials who hold the cantonments 
in the neighborhood. 

Yes, they are all immutably alike. There is 
always the white wooden cross with the name of 
the deceased, the number of his regiment, his 
company and the date of his death in simple 
black letters. The grave is a small square, bor- 
dered by bits of tile or bricks, sometimes by 
planks or the bottoms of bottles. And on this 
humble burial place someone has planted prim- 
roses. 

A bottle stuck in the ground by the neck holds 
a bit of paper on which is written all supplemen- 
tary information as to identity which will guide 
the pious pilgrim of to-morrow. 

Sometimes a perforated helmet or a tattered 
cap placed on the cross by a comrade who respects 
his memory tells us that the soldier was wounded 
in the head. One shudders at some of these hel- 
mets, they are rent so grievously. 

[52] 



A RECONNAISSANCE IN THE FOG 

We pass rapidly but religiously through the 
narrow paths between the graves. It is a sort of 
duty rather than curiosity which leads us to look 
over all these cemeteries in search of some known 
name, a friend's name, so that we may pay our 
last respects. 

But time passes. It would not be prudent to 
stop longer, for already above the neighboring 
hedge we can hear the sinister " ta-co " of the 
German bullets. Branches of an apple tree, 
lopped off by the shells, fall at our feet. 

So we enter the village through what was once 
a street. Here for fifty yards are barricades of 
bricks and dirt interlaced with farm instruments 
and carts. 

Barbed-wire entanglements which only leave a 
narrow, difficult, zigzag passage between them 
are evidences of the bitter fights which took place 
here. 

We reach the church which is the beginning of 
the communication trench which leads to the front 
lines. 

The church ! There is absolutely nothing left 
of it. One might think that the savagery of the 

[53] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

German cannon raged with a special hate on the 
buildings created for rest, meditation and prayer. 

The church has fallen down and the naves are 
now only a mass of stones on which the briers are 
already beginning to grow. A sort of arched door 
still stands at the entrance, without a scratch. It 
is nearly new and its brilliant ironwork seems a 
challenge in the midst of this destruction. 

The communication trench starts on the spot 
where the high altar used to stand. We follow 
it under the ruins, through the orchards which it 
furrows, adjusting our steps to each other, and 
keeping our eyes on the man ahead. 

Above our heads nature awakes; the sky ap- 
pears clear now; and branches of trees with their 
buds and blossoms hang over the parapets. 

It is five o'clock and broad daylight when we 
reach the proposed emplacement. It is on a knoll 
in the middle of an orchard which is bordered 
some hundred yards away by hawthorn and 
privet hedges. Behind the hedges are the Boche 
lines. 

The engineer in charge of laying out the works 
is on the ground. He tries to profit by the only 
salient which permits firing on a sufficiently wide 

[54] 



A RECONNAISSANCE IN THE FOG 

sweep of ground. On the right it commands the 
entrance to the village by a road. We see its 
white windings where it unrolls through the gar- 
dens, and then it plunges into a small wood and 
loses itself. Opposite us the emplacement com- 
mands an entire sector. 

They will scoop out the place underneath, and 
they will keep the green shell of grass and bushes 
which make the most fortunate and natural sort 
of camouflage. A communication trench grafted 
on the main trench from the church will give 
access to it. 

Orders are given rapidly, measurements are 
taken, and the tasks laid out. It is hardly expe- 
dient for us to delay in this corner, for our move- 
ments would betray our intentions, and already 
bullets, which are by no means spent bullets, cross 
above our heads singing their unappreciated buzz. 

We make our way back through the trench. 

In the village the men belonging to the sup- 
porting columns have left their lairs and are at- 
tending to their usual occupations. Some of them 
are washing their clothes in the watering-trough 
in the square and singing as they wash. The 
company barber is installed near the fountain and 

[55] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

the men form a circle about him as they wait 
their turn. On a butcher's stall of white stone a 
cook is cutting up a quarter of beef into equal 
rations. Only two hundred yards from the enemy 
the village has taken up almost its usual existence 
again. These men are not afraid. At the sound 
of the first shell they jump into their cellars, which 
are amply protected by earth and boards. But 
they already have their customs. Shells only 
come at the hour when the supplies are brought 
up, and not always then, for the shelling does n't 
occur regularly every day. The enemy does n't 
waste munitions on a village he knows is so well 
destroyed. 

The fresh air and the long road have set our 
teeth on edge and given us an appetite. We halt 
to break a crust. Some have brought canteens 
of wine or coffee; bottles of preserves appear, and 
the improvident — I am one — pay homage to 
those who pass a full flask. 

The sun is already high when we start back 
along the road. 

The lieutenant loves a quick pace and a march- 
ing song. So at the top of his lungs he begins 
one of his lively songs full of expressions that 

[56] 




A PoiLU Si-t- page 56 



A RECONNAISSANCE IN THE FOG 

would have startled a growler of the Empire 
through their shamelessness, but which do not dis- 
turb the modesty of a Colonial at all, supposing 
that a Colonial ever had any. 

And the section leaders take up the refrain in 
chorus. 

Some steps behind, Sub-Lieutenant Delpos stops 
to light his fine Egyptian cigarette. In spite of 
the early hour and the uncertain weather, and 
with no thought of the disagreeable march through 
the sticky mud of the communication trench, he 
is dressed with the greatest care. His bright tan 
leggings are elegantly curved; his furred gloves 
are of the finest quality, and the pocket of his 
jacket, cut in the latest English style, shows a fine 
cambric handkerchief, subtly scented. And arm 
in arm we follow the quick pace of our comrades, 
while he continues the interrupted story of his 
latest exploit. 

" Yes, mon cher, picture to yourself an exquis- 
ite blonde. I met her on the Rue des Saints- 
Peres. . . ." 



[57] 



CHAPTER VI 

OUR FIRST ENGAGEMENT 

YESTERDAY evening at five o'clock we 
received an order to take our positions in 
the front line to support the attack which the 
second battalion would make at nine-thirty. 

It was raining. It has rained all the time for 
some months, and we have become accustomed 
to the mud and dampness. 

We left the cantonment at Morcourt at night- 
fall. We went along the towpath of the canal, 
across the bridge at Froissy, through the ruins 
of Eclusier and entered the communication trench 
which we knew as the " 120 long." 

The silent march is accomplished with little 
difficulty. There is no sound of cannon. Every- 
thing is quiet. We reach our positions about mid- 
night — four dugouts camouflaged for the guns 
of two sections which are to play on the sector; the 
two other sections remain in the " Servian " trench 
in reserve at the disposal of the commander. 

[58] 



OUR FIRST ENGAGEMENT 

The lieutenant examines the post established 
for him. Farther ahead is a communication 
trench which has been completely overturned and 
destroyed, now nothing but a great hole. Below 
is a big tangle of barbed wire, fascines and ripped 
open sandbags. We can see very well through 
this jumble and we are installed there. 

We can make out the details of the Boche lines 
through the glass. 

" Come. I think it will be all right. But it 
will be hard. Fortunately, it can't last long." 

Then we return to the positions for a final 
inspection. 

The emplacements which our guns occupy are 
round excavations about three yards across and 
two deep. In the middle nearly on a level with 
the surrounding ground is a sort of pedestal for 
the machine gun. The barrel scarcely reaches 
beyond the hole and it is absolutely invisible at 
a short distance. The men have proceeded to 
make a camouflage which resembles the character 
of the terrain with wickerwork covered by dirt 
and grass. The many inventions with which they 
have increased the weight of the machine guns — 
the shield, sights and periscope — are in their 

[59] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

places. The men disdain these additions a Httle 
and even neglect to use them unless forced to 
do so. 

*' They would only have to add a little more," 
they say, " to make a * 75 ' instead of a machine 
gun. 

" The periscope may be of use for something. 
You have to try half an hour before you can see 
anything. I like my eyes better." 

The ammunition wagons are installed and 
opened; the belts are ready; the gun layer, the 
loader, and the crew are at their stations. 

The lieutenant makes the rounds of each sec- 
tion, inspecting the guns, testing the mechanism, 
trying the weight of the munitions, taking account 
of everything and looking each man in the face. 

" We are the last company organized," he says. 
" You know that the machine gunners should be 
the flower of the army; don't forget it. It is our 
first engagement. Try to show that we 're there 
a little." 

This short unpretentious harangue produces its 
effect on the men, who smile as they listen to it. 
They are not nervous now, but only slightly curi- 
ous. They are not sorry to put their toys to the 

[60] 



OUR FIRST ENGAGEMENT 

test at last, and to shoot their projectiles at some- 
thing besides the moving figures in the training 
camps. 

When the inspection is over and the final in- 
structions have been given, we return to the com- 
mandant's station, and stretch out to sleep on the 
reserve caissons which protect us from the mud. 
Rifts in the clouds reveal the stars. It will be 
fine to-morrow. But waiting is cold, very cold, 
and it is impossible to sleep under such a wind. 
We talk. 

" You 're going to hear a concert. They 
have n't massed more than three hundred guns 
in all, from the ' 75 ' to the heavy artillery, on 
our fifteen hundred yard front for nothing. Have 
you seen the '150' mortars? They have some 
muzzles." 

Dawn appears. A light fog rises from the 
ground and seems thickest at the side of the canal 
where the German positions are. It is the coldest 
hour of the day and the earth of our dugout is 
as hard as iron; it is frozen. Instinctively I let 
down the ear-flaps of my cap which until now I 
have kept under my helmet. 

"Are you cold?" 

[61] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

" I 'm not warm." 

"A drop of brandy? " 

" Sure." 

The lieutenant passes his canteen to me and 
as I drink the thin stream from its mouth I feel 
a wave of warmth. 

Light comes, but it is very pale. Around us 
we hear the tread of feet on the hard ground and 
the slapping of arms across the chest. 

We wait nervously. Presently we receive an 
order not to fire until the blast of the whistle. 

Eight o'clock! Behind us, in the limpid azure, 
the red disk of the sun rises. 

A shell cuts through the air; then another; then 
still another. Our artillery is firing on the Boche 
lines. 

" Attention." The response is instantaneous. 
We can still see no movement in the ranks of the 
infantry to our right whose rush we are to sup- 
port. What are they waiting for? The men are 
nervous and they start to grumble. 

Boom! comes the Boche's reply. 

A great mass of earth, grass and crumbled 
stones shoots up a hundred yards ahead of us! 

Too short! 

[62] 



OUR FIRST ENGAGEMENT 

Boom! still another. Still short! 

A large shell heads for us. It thunders. 
Where is it going to burst? The devil! It falls 
near our first section, to the left; then, almost 
at once, another, a little to the right. Are we 
spotted? We haven't fired a cartridge yet, and 
there is n't an aeroplane or sausage in the air. 

Two " 150's," one right after the other, burst 
fair on the section, right in the hole. An enor- 
mous mass of earth spurts up. Through the dust 
and smoke we see broken arms, sandbags ripped 
open, legs torn from the body, an entire body, the 
gun! . . . 

The lieutenant knits his brows in dismay. A 
sergeant from the reserve half section, slightly 
pale, runs up with the details. 

" Sergeant Rolle, the gun layer, and the crew 
are killed." 

" Occupy the emplacement with your half- 
section." 

" Very well. Lieutenant." 

Shells are falling in our sector without a break. 
All the guns are splattered with splinters and 
most of the crews are slightly wounded. 

Durozier's half section jump out of their dug- 
[63] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

out in a hurry and throw themselves into the hole 
which has now increased in size to a vast yawning 
crater. 

" If we could only fire on something. But 
there 's nothing to see. And no signal." 

The Boche artillery certainly has a grudge 
against our first section. The new gun is scarcely 
in position when a great shell falls in the same 
place, in the same crater. 

We see distinctly a body blown high into the 
air, and the body still holds the mount of the 
machine gun which he was just setting in place. 
Headless, disemboweled, it falls just in front of 
our dugout within reach of our hands. It is 
Gouze, the chief gunner. 

''The sahuds.r' 

An intelligence officer from the major reaches 
us. 

" Get ready to support the wave which is going 
over with all your guns! " 

The shells burst on our position implacably. 
There is n't the slightest choice between the em- 
placements. Three guns are still intact and ready 
to fire at the blast of the whistle. But the fourth 
gun must be put in position, too. 

[64] 



OUR FIRST ENGAGEMENT 

" Tell the adjutant of the section to occupy the 
crater," comes the order. 

By means of the half-destroyed communication 
trench I reach the section which I find burrowing 
in shelters built hastily out of whatever came 
handiest and deliver my order. 

The adjutant takes it and turns pale. 

*' All right, but there 's no great chance of our 
getting there." 

Their hearts throb, and they look at each other. 
It is true that it is necessary, but on the parapet 
between the trench and the crater, no longer the 
slightest protection, shells fall like hail and with- 
out a let-up. They hesitate. 

As if he had foreseen this, the lieutenant had 
followed behind me. He reads their hesitation 
in their faces and is about to say something to 
overcome it when the blast of the major's whistle 
sounds. It is the signal. The wave jumps from 
the parallels and dashes forward. We must fire. 

Our three guns have already begun their rattle 
and are spraying the terrain before the enemy's 
trenches close to the ground, probing the loop- 
holes, mowing the parapets, and cutting the last 
of the barbed wire. 

[65] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

The fourth gun ought to fire too; It must. 
Then, quietly, with that unusual coolness which 
characterizes him, the lieutenant clambers over 
the parapet. 

" Will you come with me, Margisf " 

Cigarette between his lips, leaning carelessly on 
his curved handled cane, as though he were going 
for a morning walk through the fields, he advances, 
standing very straight, without hurrying, and 
without losing an inch of his great height. 

The men understand. Five seconds later we 
are in the crater and in less time than it takes to 
tell it the gun begins to fire like the rest. 

The enemy's artillery has now changed its ob- 
jective. It now aims its fire on the assaulting 
wave. 

We return to our shelter. The spectacle is 
wonderful. Almost without losses, our waves 
reach the first of the enemy's lines and clear them 
at a bound. 

" Lengthen the fire. . . . On the second posi- 
tion. . . . Farther . . . on the third; on the for- 
tified emplacement; to the left of the woods. 
. . . Fire, fire, fire, nom de Dieu! " 

The fire on our sector begins again more vio- 
[66] 



OUR FIRST ENGAGEMENT 

lently than ever. We have bothered the enemy 
and he wants to silence us. 

Three out of four of our guns are silent. The 
fourth, the last one to arrive, with all the rapid- 
ity of its fire, alone sustains the attack of our 
infantry. The wonderful little machine devours 
without a skip the endless munitions which the 
crew have difficulty in bringing to it. 

" Fire, Adjutant, fire! Don't stop. Give it to 
them," shouts the lieutenant, seized by the fever 
of battle. 

And the adjutant fires, fires without stopping. 
Our wave reaches its objective, the enemy flees, 
whole companies surrender. 

"That's it; we are there. Fire on the re- 
serves, farther, the length of the embankment. 
Cease firing, stop it, stop firing. We are there. 
. . . Cease firing! " 

Just as he shouts this order a shell, the last one 
— the third on the same spot — falls, bursts, and 
buries the gun and its heroic crew. 

" M . . .! The swine! Can't they see that 
it is finished? " 

Heavily and mournfully we make toll of the 
dead. Comrades pay their last respects to their 

[67] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

comrades. They take their letters and keepsakes, 
and arrange the bodies for their last resting place 
as best they can. 

The order to go back is given. 

For two hours we make our way through the 
communication trench, now only a stream of mud 
in which we sink to our ankles. 

We advance, dejected, silent, heavy with 
fatigue, depressed by the thought of those we 
have left behind, whom we shall never see again, 
as was our wont, even yesterday at the cantonment. 

The lieutenant is in the lead, leaning on his 
baton, silently, chewing on his eternal cigarette. 

We finally reach the end of the trench at 
Froissy and come out on the main road. 

In spite of their long hours of fatigue and the 
sleepless nights, the men suddenly seem less weary. 

They no longer march one on top of the 
other, stepping over corpses. Their horizon has 
broadened; they see; they breathe; they come out 
of their trance; they emerge from Hell, they come 
from death. They are coming back to life ! 

Two hundred yards ahead we can already see 
groups: our mules, our limbers, companies of 
Territorials who are repairing the roads, sappers 

[68] 



OUR FIRST ENGAGEMENT 

from the engineer corps, men from the field 
kitchens, automobiles, dreams . . . the living 
world at last. 

The sub-lieutenant has remained at the rear of 
the column, assuming the difficult task of encour- 
aging the stragglers and keeping up the spirits of 
the weak. Now he runs up and down the ranks. 
He is proud of his men; he loves their swagger 
and steadiness. 

*' Come, children, a little speed. Try to march 
by these people in some style." 

And as we approach the first huts he begins to 
sing at the top of his lungs his song, the song of 
the machine gun : 

Alais dans le petit jour blemi, 

Alerte! Void I'ennemi! 

Et t'eveillant soudain rageuse, 

Ala mitrailleuse, 
Avec tes tac tac reguliers. 
Sans t'arreter, noire et fumeuse, 

Aia mitrailleuse. 

Some of the men look at him in surprise, look 
at him and then begin to sing. 

And this bruised troop, which had just lost 
half its effective strength, with its wounded men 
with their bloody bandages, their torn clothes, 

[69] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

their arms in bits, filed by singing this heroic joy- 
ful song, expressing in their voices all their hopes 
and all their triumphs. 

It defiled between lines of astonished men who 
stood respectful, stupefied at so much energy, so 
much fire and dash in the face of so much death. 

In position before his staff, fingers together in 
the prescribed position of salute, a general stood 
with bared head, while the company marched by. 



[70] 



CHAPTER VII 

EASTER EGGS 

EASTER — it fell on April twenty-third that 
year — dawned splendidly, a real day of 
gladsome spring. 

The company was off duty. We had worked 
for a month on the fortifications in the front-line 
trenches and we deserved this fine day. 

In addition the sector was quiet. There had n't 
been an engagement or a skirmish since February. 
This large village — more than a village, a town 
almost — scarcely five miles from the Boche lines, 
absolutely unprotected, not concealed in the slight- 
est by a bend in the terrain, by a hill or a wood, 
had not received a single shell in three months. 

Of course it is true that the church, town hail 
and some factories were injured, but not very 
much. They had some large shell holes, but they 
had n't fallen in or tumbled down. The church 
and town hall still had their roofs, and if the 
chimneys of the sugar refineries were cut on the 

[71] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

bias, it was high up, almost at the top, as if they 
wanted to blunt them, or spare them, or preserve 
them. 

We were now accustomed to this incompre- 
hensible calm, in fact the officers were often heard 
to say, 

" This quiet bodes no good to us." 

All day and nearly all night, too, we hear the 
shriek of French and Boche shells in the air. Bat- 
teries of heavy artillery search for their marks, 
but all that misses us and passes over our heads 
or strikes in front. We know that they are n't 
aimed at us, and we take no interest in them. So 
with that fine carelessness of men long since ac- 
customed to the worst dangers, we live in absolute 
security. 

That Easter morning a musical mass was sung 
in an immense great hall which had been used for- 
merly for entertainments. A crowd of soldiers of 
every branch of the service and from all the regi- 
ments encamped in the neighborhood packed the 
place. In the crowd was a goodly number of civil- 
ians. Including women and girls who were wearing 
their best dresses for the first time in a year. 

The band of the ... first Territorials played. 
[72] 



EASTER EGGS 

Someone beside me dared to murmur, 

" All the same, if a Boche shell fell in that 
crowd, what a mess it would be! " 

" Don't think," came from several sides at 
once, " about Boche shells. They fire them. 
They know we are here. They are afraid — " 

The chaplain, assisted by two clerical stretcher 
bearers, began worship on the improvised altar 
on the stage. 

Soldiers sang the psalms of the liturgy. 

I was nervous, and sobs came to my throat. In 
order not to make a ridiculous spectacle of myself 
with my tears I went out. I ran to the canton- 
ment, saddled my horse, and we galloped at ran- 
dom through the sunny country on paths covered 
with flowers. I stopped in the depths of a valley 
under the poplars and stretched out on the grass. 
My horse laid down beside me. And while he 
munched the grass entirely indifferent to me, I 
said: 

" Kiki, old Kiki, if an unexpected shell fell on 
us now and blotted us out, that would be much 
less disastrous than if it fell among those who at 
this hour are praying in that chapel. They are 

[73] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

praying for their far-away firesides, their mothers, 
their wives. 

" They are praying for the preservation of the 
past and for the future. They have the joy of be- 
Heving, and that belief, that faith, has steeped 
them in a special life to which they remain 
attached. 

" But we, old horse? If a shell annihilates us, 
what of it? 

" We have never believed anything and we 
never will. 

" I have impressed my brutal scepticism on the 
beings who are nearest and dearest to me. I 
have torn down the faith of their cradles ... a 
faith in the Beyond. 

" So when we shall be under the sod sleeping 
our long night, before next spring has awakened 
its green verdure on our remains, base and name- 
less oblivion will already have overtaken us. On 
the simple white cross my hastily traced name 
will not even be read. . . . 

" Perhaps in passing near my abandoned grave 
someone will say, ' Poor fellow! ' Perhaps some- 
one more sentimental than the rest will throw 
flowers on it. 

[74] 



EASTER EGGS 

" But in disappearing, old horse, we shall harm 
no one. 

" The tears on the beautiful eyes I know so well 
will at first be bitter, but they will be dried at 
last" 

This rather melancholy monologue was not to 
Kiki's taste at all. He interrupted me by whinny- 
ing loudly. He knew it was time for oats. 

So we went back to the cantonment under the 
fine midday sun. Before our door at the last 
house on the left, on the road to the sugar refinery. 
Burette, the quartermaster-sergeant, was going 
through his matutinal ablutions. He generally 
began them about eleven, just as they were calling 
dinner, which made him twenty minutes late and 
gave him a chance to growl about the cooking, 
which was not hot enough to suit him, or about 
his share, which, according to his appetite, was re- 
duced to a proper allowance. 

Inside, seated before an open canteen which 
served him equally as a seat or a writing desk, 
was Adjutant Dotan reading and re-reading and 
sighing over the letters he took from a voluminous 
package in front of him. In a loud voice he 
[75] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

mused over the problem which haunted his days 
and nights : 

" Shall I marry ? Or, shall I not ? " 
For two years now Dotan had seen the realiza- 
tion of his matrimonial projects grow further and 
further away from week to week, from month to 
month. 

On the first leave the Regimental Administra- 
tive Council had not acted on his request. Then, 
for two consecutive times, leave was stopped on 
the day before he was going to go. And despite 
the advice of the colonel, to whom he told his 
grievance, Dotan would not marry by proxy. 
This ceremony in partibus, entrusted to a third 
party, seemed to him the least bit ridiculous, and 
he had a well-developed desire for the whole of 
the wedding ceremonies. 

"Shall I marry? Or, shall I not? " 
While he thought over his dilemma, he read 
for the hundredth time the letters from his gentle 
fiancee, who awaited him in Provence. And he 
occupied the monotony of the long hours in writ- 
ing her two letters a day, one in the morning and 
another in the evening, with sometimes a supple- 
mentary postal card in addition. 

[76] 



EASTER EGGS 

" To think that if I were married I should have 
already been so happy! " 

" Three days," Morin let fall cynically in his 
innocent voice. 

" Yes, I should have been happy." 

" Three days," insisted Morin, " the second 
day before, the day before, and the day of your 
wedding until noon. And then you would n't be 
as you are now — free, tranquil, and without a 
care." 

" Free, tranquil, without a care ! Oh, yes, you 
say. You 're always the same. Free, tranquil 
and happy ! You must have learned that by look- 
ing out of your window, you, say . . ." 

Morin, in accordance with his parsimonious use 
of words, did not want to carry on this tedious 
discussion. He would have answered, neverthe- 
less, had not Dedouche announced that the table 
was set, and that there was a wonderful menu, a 
real Easter menu. 

Chevalier, the mess corporal, both our Vatel 
and cup bearer, had come back from leave the 
day before. Before our ravished eyes he untied 
his packages, spread out sumptuous, epicurean 
dainties, and drew from their thick straw covers 

[77] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

generous bottles of wine whose very appearance 
made us joyful. 

Morin had been a constant guest at the select 
restaurants of La Cannebiere and at the famous 
inns of La Corniche, and Is an expert in the art 
of opening a fine wine without shaking it, and he 
also knows how to carve roasts and chickens skil- 
fully and symmetrically. 

He was opening with suitable impresslveness 
an old bottle of Sauterne, whose bright golden 
color brought smiles to our faces, when a tre- 
mendous explosion brought us to our feet and 
threw down the single partition in the room. 

" The gun back In the garden draws the fire," 
mumbled Dedouche with his mouth full, and with- 
out letting go of his plate which he was rubbing 
carefully with a large bit of bread. 

But as he spoke a still more violent explosion 
shattered all the window panes In the house to 
bits. 

A great Boche shell had fallen thirty yards 
from us In the street which had been recently 
covered with hard flint and which It scattered Into 
innumerable fragments. We heard the cries of 
the wounded and the dying outside. 

[78] 



EASTER EGGS 

"Quick! Into the cellar 1" 

But none of us lost our heads sufficiently to 
take refuge in the cellar without our munitions. 

One brought the fowl, another the bottles, a 
third the sauce, and someone the cheese and 
candles, and under the threat of shots which 
speeded us we reached our underground shelter. 

The light of two candles stuck in bottles showed 
us the table in the darkness and we spread out 
our dinner things anew. 

Above was the bombardment in all its intensity. 

Shots landed in the road level with our air- 
hole, which, as a provision against such an oc- 
currence, had long since been stuffed with sand- 
bags. 

We heard things falling! 

" Mince! what are they offering us for Easter 
eggs?" 

This ready joke made us laugh, and we forgot 
the tragedy of the hour. In the heady anesthesia 
of real Pommard, and not christened " Pom- 
m.ard " for use at the front, but which had a real 
Burgundian bouquet, we forgot that the shells 
were raging in all their fury above us. 

The shadow of a man appeared at the entrance 
[79] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

to the cellar. Illuminated by the wavering yellow 
lights of our candles, it stood out in sharp con- 
trast In the darkness of the staircase. 

" Is the margis here? . . . Margis, the lieuten- 
ant says you are to bring all the horses at once, 
to the gulley in the Caix woods and shelter them 
from the bombardment." 

" All right, I 'm coming. Go on, Dedouche, 
pour out another glass of Pommard. I '11 take 
my dessert in my pocket." 

I picked up my helmet, mask and cane and was 
ready to go, as I listened through the vaults and 
hoped for a let-up in the storm. 

*' It 's over. We can go." 

" When you wish, old fellow. They 've stopped 
for breath." 

" You '11 find out in five minutes." 

" Bah ! I 've more time to go than I need." 

" Good luck, and if you find any Easter eggs 
on the way bring them back for dinner." 

The adjutant's reiterated joke no longer had 
the same zest for me and it hardly made me 
smile. 

Outside, the streets were empty, and there 
was n't a soul in sight. 

[80] 



EASTER EGGS 

The bombardment had stopped, but no one 
was taken in by this deceptive calm. From one 
moment to another we waited for a new bom- 
bardment even more violent than the first. The 
Boches are creatures of habit and this is not the 
first time they 'v^e played this trick. When they 
bombard a cantonment, they very often interrupt 
their bombardment some minutes so as to make 
us think it is over; then, when the men have 
ventured into the streets, they suddenly begin 
again and make fresh victims. 

A house has fallen in the middle of the road 
some steps from our cantonment. Debris block 
the way, and we have to climb over them. Far- 
ther along, at the other end of the street, a house 
which was still intact this morning is now in 
flames. 

There is no time to lose. Already several 
shells, advance messengers of the coming storm, 
begin to fall. I was about to dart across the 
Place when a "105 " fell on the pavements and 
burst. 

A poor little soldier carrying two enormous 
bags, a great bundle of linen, and some souvenirs 
In his hands passed just then. He was on his 

[81] 



^. 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

way to the station at Guillaucourt to take the train, 
for he was going on leave. 

Rejoicing in his approaching happiness he 
walked on without paying the slightest attention 
to this atmosphere where death was hovering. 
A shot hit him in the back and passed out the 
other side. I jumped to aid him. He was bathed 
in blood. In a gentle, caressing, almost timid 
voice he said to me : 

" Oh, it 's not painful. I am dying." 

And then with his lips, with an expression of 
kindness and thankfulness which I shall never 
forget, he murmured, " Yvonne." . . . And his 
face haloed with blessedness like the religious 
images of the martyrs, he died. 

I stood there in ecstasy, transfixed, before that 
beauty in death, before that strength of love 
which lights the final hour. 

How many I have seen die in this way! In 
their last breaths all had the name of some woman, 
and their eyes lighted at the name. 

In the final moment of a life which is going 
out physical suffering no longer counts. The 
name of the loved one embodies all the vanishing 
mirage of the future, the end of a too beautiful 

[82] 



EASTER EGGS 

dream, the memories of a happy past ... of a 
happy past, for the bad times are forgotten. 

Before the quivering body of this poor little 
soldier, struck down fiercely just as he was going 
on leave, full of hope, of plans, of dreams, a 
song on his lips, I forgot the threatening shells. 
An artilleryman went by on the run and shouted 
at me : 

" Get out of that. You '11 get done up." And 
I fled. 

Our horses were bivouacked in the courtyard 
of a sawmill. Not an accident there. I counted 
them all at a glance. 

The underground shelter of the men was in 
the back of the yard, and I went to the air-hole 
which was stopped up by a piece of sheet-iron 
which served as a screen against splinters. 

"Oh, down there! Men of the echelon. All 
outside. To horse. We must hurry. Come on, 
hurry up! Your masks, helm.ets, forward with 
just the bridle! " 

One by one they jumped out of their lairs, 
grimacing as the bright sun struck them full in 
the face as they came out of the darkness. 

[83] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

" Each one two horses, by squads of six. . . . 
One hundred yards between each squad. The 
other men will remain here and mobilize the 
pack saddles and caissons in the cellar. Take the 
road to the Caix station .... on the road lined 
with poplars .... On the gallop .... no 
straggling." 

Some minutes later we were already going out 
of the village. It was a bad passage, but the 
only one and the shortest one to reach our desti- 
nation, but three hundred yards had to be cov- 
ered on entirely unprotected ground opposite the 
Boches. 

Boom ! It was the expected. The shells began 
to fall again. A cloud tinted with red from the 
tiles of a falling house rises in the air and makes 
a large spot in the sky back by the church. 

Boom ! There 's another one now and nearer 
to us, near the sugar refinery. 

A crash, an avalanche of bricks; this time it 
is the chimney of the sawmill which falls on the 
horses' cantonment. It was time, five minutes 
sooner and we would have been under it. 

" Go on, go on. . . . Gallop, for God's sake. 
Corporals . . . keep the distances. . . . Spread 

[84] 



EASTER EGGS 

out the squads. . . . Get into the fields . . . be- 
hind the trees." 

We reach the deep path hke a whirlwind, while 
the bombardment rages over the village more than 
ever. 

*' Any accident? Anyone hit? Good. As- 
semble, and on the trot now." 

Ten minutes later we are in the shelter of 
Muguet wood, completely shut off from the view 
of the Boche artillery. 

The wood deserves its name, for it scents the 
air a hundred yards about with the perfume of 
violets and lilies of the valley, which form a car- 
pet between the trees and which our mules, en- 
tirely insensible to the subtle beauties of nature, 
begin to eat as though they were common fodder. 

" Corporals . . . look to your sections. . . . 
Is everyone here? . . . All the horses too? " 

I cast a rapid glance over the parked beasts. 

" Look, Liniers, where is Chocolate? " 

And indeed where was Chocolate? 

How did it happen that Chocolate was n't 
there? 

Still he had been with the rest at the sawmill. 

Chocolate, as the v^eteran of the echelon, re- 
[85] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

celved special consideration from the men. As 
far as the dispositions of the cantonment per- 
mitted, they reserved for him a covered shelter, 
a feeding rack, and a manger. 

This time the sawmill offered many resources. 
The stable walls still stood with only a few gaps, 
and the roof was still intact. Beside some artil- 
lery horses, who were generally absent, there was 
an available place and they had given it to Choco- 
late. And there the drivers had forgotten him. 

If it had been any other animal we would have 
let him go, but Chocolate was an entirely different 
matter and we must go and find him. 

" Raynal, I hand over the command of the 
detachment to you. Liniers, come with me, we '11 
go and find Chocolate." 

We went back over the path, on foot this time, 
but as fast as our legs would go. As we reached 
the village the intensity of the bombardment 
seemed to decrease. Were we going to be lucky 
enough to strike another lull? Again there 
were particularly violent explosions, nearer, then 
nothing more. 

We reached the village entirely out of breath. 

As we turned into the street which led to the 
[86] 



EASTER EGGS 

sawmill Liniers stopped suddenly, as if petrified, 
and began to wave his hands. 

"M . . .!" 

"What?" 

" The shed. . . ." 

" Well, what about the shed? " 

"Demolished. Can't you see? It's gone." 

We ran still faster. 

The shed was absolutely demolished and is 
now only a shapeless mass of rubbish, but there 
are no signs of a shell — no traces of burned 
timbers, no splinters. One would have thought 
that it had folded up and laid down on its side 
like a house of cards. 

When we reached the shed we saw Chocolate's 
great neck and shoulders and enormous head free 
from the rubbish which hid the rest of his body. 
He was stretched out full length on his side, 
browsing serenely on the young shoots of an 
apple tree, which had gone down with the build- 
ing. His large eye looked us over as we stood 
there, overcome and absolutely stupefied with 
amazement, as much as to say: 

" What . . . you 've come at last . . . you 
need n't have been in so much of a hurry." 

[87] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

I ran to the air-hole of the cellar. 

" Hey there, men with spades; quick, come, dig 
out Chocolate." 

*' Dig out Chocolate ! " and they all rushed out 
utterly surprised by the announcement of such a 
job. 

The bricks were scattered with a few blows of 
the shovels, the beams raised, and the place cleared 
away. 

With all the ease of a circus horse who has 
been playing dead, Chocolate stretched out his 
front feet, then his hind ones, balanced himself 
two or three times, took a spring, and without 
the slightest hurry stood up, shaking himself all 
over like a dog coming out of the water. 

There were a few scratches on his hide, but it 
was an old hide, hard and tanned, which resists 
everything. Nothing broken ! Brave Chocolate, 
come on ! The men all look at him, admire him, 
and fondle him. He seemed somewhat surprised 
by such manifestations of great affection. 

And without a care in the world for the bom- 
bardment which was beginning again, he went to 
the nearby pond and drank deeply. 

[88] 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE AEROPLANE 

DAWN had just broken. Some of the bold- 
est of the men In the echelon were already 
up, rubbing down their horses and adjusting the 
breast collars. At daylight we had to go a long way 
to exchange the pack-saddles for munltlon-wagons. 

This has been the way from the start. The 
companies of machine guns, probably even more 
than the other branches of service, although I 
don't know, are experiment stations on which they 
try one sort of gear one day and another the next. 
First it is a round shield, then a square shield, 
and then a periscope. We adopted the Wikers 
saddle, only to have it replaced with the Hotch- 
kiss. And we had scarcely put It in service than 
it was withdrawn to give us ammunition wagons. 

These changes are one of the slight distractions 
of the trade. They must distract still more the 
handlers of the public funds to judge by the fre- 
quency they offer them to us. 

[89] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

But what difference does it make to us whether 
we do one thing or another? While we wait time 
passes and the war goes on. 

And then " there 's no use trying to understand." 

That is the typical expression in every army. 
Before the most unexpected orders, the most un- 
usual, which seem the most useless and incoherent, 
we can only bow without trying to use our in- 
telligence. 

" There is no use in trying to understand." 
That 's the whole secret of discipline. If one did 
try to understand, he would never obey — or too 
late. 

We were ordered to assemble on the Place at 
daybreak, and at daybreak we were there. The 
clear sky is splendidly luminous. 

" Good weather for aeroplanes," said someone. 

Indeed it was good weather for aeroplanes, 
for there was n't a cloud in the sky and no mist 
on the ground. A reconnaissance in such weather 
should be easy. 

The Boche aviators are early birds. One sees 
them but rarely during the daytime, when ours 
mount guard on the lines, but their specialty is 

[90] 



THE AEROPLANE 

getting up early in the morning. We hear them 
flying over our cantonments long before daybreak, 
at the first rays of dawn, and see them returning 
rapidly to shelter as soon as the light becomes 
clearer and it becomes easier to fire our cannon 
and machine guns. 

Presently, as I am giving a final inspection to 
the material we are to turn in, I meet Sergeant 
Lace in the yard of the sawmill. 

" Oh, but you 're an early bird to-day." 

" I 've just been ordered to find a good place 
to fire on aeroplanes and take up my position there 
at once. There 's going to be a section there 
each day. Mine starts." 

*' Have you found your emplacement? " 

" Not yet. But that 's not hard to find. Just 
a hole or a sloping place, so that we can stretch 
out on our backs." 

*' I know just the place for you. The hole 
of a ' 320 ' at the entrance of the village on the 
left, near the poplars. You '11 see it right up 
against the fence which borders the road from 
Caix." 

" Wonderful. I '11 take up my position there. 
It must have been dug expressly for me." 

[91] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

A half hour later the cavalry of the three 
machine-gun companies of the regiment assembled 
in front of the church. 

Cavalry! . . . 

My good comrade, Roudon, a sergeant-major 
in the Hussars, who is now with the first company 
of machine guns in a position like mine, becomes 
furiously angry every time he hears that word 
" cavalry." 

" Cavalry! Cavalry! " he roars. " You ought 
to say an assery, a mulery. Just look at them. 
Not one in ten stands up on his feet. And the 
riders ! There is n't one who could ride a horse. 
They 're afraid! " 

Roudon is an experienced cavalryman. For ten 
years he knew the mad, intoxicating dashes with 
the Algerian contingents in Morocco, the mysteri- 
ous attractions of reconnaissances in the long 
reaches of the valleys of the Sahara, impetuous 
charges and wild triumphant pursuits among the 
red Spahis with their Damascus swords, amid the 
glistening sands which rise toward the sun in 
golden spangles. At the beginning of the war 
he was thrown into a regiment of metropolitan 
cavalry and fought in Lorraine and Belgium. He 

[92] 



THE AEROPLANE 

lived through the horrible hours of retreat, as- 
suming the perilous mission of rearguard while 
the other regiments withdrew in good order. He 
fought on foot, in the edges of woods, to stop 
to the last moment the march of the enemy while 
the rear went on to the Marne. He endured 
those long, seemingly endless, waits on foot in 
front of his horse, the bridle on his arm, saber 
in scabbard, under the storm of shells and the 
invisible menace of bullets. There were no 
trenches then. 

Roudon is a cavalryman in his soul and his love 
for the service. So, attached to an improvised 
service which is neither cavalry, artillery, nor in- 
fantry, he does not know what to make of it, 
and he rages at it through his excess of conscience 
and too exclusive love of duty perfectly done. 

The echelon of the third company arrives on 
the Place in good order a few seconds after us. 
Hemin leads it and he marches on foot beside his 
column, hands in his pockets, whistling. 

Hemin is a type, and not the least interesting 
among the complex personalities of our command, 
for we are cavalrymen transformed into infantry, 
but we 're still cavalrymen just the same. 

[93] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

Hemin is as much a cavalryman by trade as 
Roudon, and perhaps even more so. He was 
successively a stable boy in a racing stable at 
Chantilly, then a jockey, and finally a trainer, 
after he had done his military service in a regi- 
ment of chasseurs. So he is a horseman par ex- 
cellence. But he never made war as a cavalry- 
man before. Since the beginning of the war he 
has been attached to various services. First, he 
was an infantry scout, a standard bearer for a 
general, a courier for a major, and he was trans- 
ferred to the companies of machine guns when 
they were definitely established. Hemin has a 
style all his own. To all appearances he is neither 
a cavalryman nor a foot soldier. His jacket is 
a Colonial one with anchors and cuff-facings, but 
it has white stripes. He wears great yellow boots, 
a cavalryman's spurs, his breeches are reinforced 
with olive leather, and his head is covered with 
a very small black cap. Another curious char- 
acteristic is that Hemin, the excellent horseman, 
always walks when he accompanies his detachment. 

When we are assembled, we turn the command 
of the detachment over to Roudon, the senior 

[94] 



THE AEROPLANE 

officer, and he leads the way. Hemin and I bring 
up the rear some distance back. 

In files of two our one hundred and fifty horses 
and mules form a long column, unwieldy and 
slow, which winds along the road. 

" A fine target for an aeroplane! " 

This exclamation had hardly been uttered when 
the well-known roar of a Boche aeroplane was 
heard over our heads. 

" Zut I there 's one. . . . We ought to have 
expected it in such weather and started earlier. 
Look out, if he spots us. Don't worry, there 's 
no danger, he 's too high. ... At least three 
thousand." 

A " 75 " was already weaving around this 
scarcely visible, extremely mobile target the white 
tuffs of its shrapnel, and threw around the ma- 
chine a murderous circle which followed it in its 
evolutions. But the aeroplane in the air seemed 
to care little and it continued on its way. 

We all followed the vicissitudes of the fight as 
we went along, heads in the air. When a shell 
seemed to burst very near, an exclamation came 
from every mouth. 

"Oh! . . . that did n't miss much." 
[95] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

"A little more to the left; that would get 
him." 

" Oh, that missed. ... He 's too far." 

" This is outrageous . . . he's gone . . . he's 
getting away." 

And as a matter of fact the aeroplane gets away 
. . . outside the " 75's " field of fire. It guides 
itself no doubt by the white ribbon of the road 
which shows clearly against the rich green of the 
pastures. 

He has seen us now. He has seen us crawling, 
winding and unrolling on the ribbon. He heads 
straight for us, circling around in circles of which 
we are without a doubt the center, and gradually 
comes lower. 

" Look out for the bombs." 

" No . . . he 's half turned . . . he 's going 
back." 

" Going back. ... You '11 see." 

He 's lower now and we can see distinctly the 
great black crosses under his wings. 

All our men are looking. The horses seem to 
scent the danger, for they prick up their ears and 
paw the ground, while the mules neigh. 

Suddenly from on high something begins to 
[96] 



THE AEROPLANE 

glide along some aerial rail and shatters the air 
above us. That lasts a second, a flash. As we 
listen and wait one would have said that it falls 
slowly and for hours. We look in the direction 
of the noise as if to see something, as if to see 
where the bombardment is going to fall. It seems 
like a linked chain which rolls out, clashing its 
links against each other. 

A tremendous boom, and black smoke, greenish 
and red as well, blacker, denser, thicker than that 
from the great shells, rises in the middle of the 
field a hundred and fifty yards on our right. 

And there is another. It bursts on our left at 
the same distance. He is certainly searching for 
the range. Will the next strike in the middle and 
right on the mark? We 're a fine mark, to be 
sure, a fine target, — one hundred and fifty horses 
in Indian file. If he does n't make a good shot 
he 's a duffer. 

Roudon stands up in his stirrups, turns around, 
and shouts commands to the uneasy men : 

" Close up, close up, close up, I say. . . . Dress 
up together." 

He leads the column rapidly, now closed up into 
a compact group like a flock of sheep, towards 

[97] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

the road from Harbonnieres, which is lined with 
trees that will conceal us from the aeroplane. 

Two other bombs burst behind us one after 
another. 

" That makes four. He can't have many left. 
He did n't bring a truck! " 

Some hundred yards away near a pond cows 
graze absolutely indifferent to the battle in the air. 
The " 75 " again begins to fire. Its bursts of shrap- 
nel come close to the aeroplane but do not hit it. 

Another bomb. I stop. It looks as though 
it were going to fall in front of us. I 'm not going 
to put my head under the knife. So I start to 
draw my horse back under the trees. 

There it is. It has fallen in the fields again. 
But its explosion throws up dismal fragments, 
large and bloody ones. It fell squarely on the 
herd of cows and annihilated it. 

" The bungler I He 's wasting the milk," comes 
in the accent of the faubourgs nearly under my 
horse's feet. 

Hard by, in the hole of the " 320," Lace's half- 
section has placed its battery. I had approached 
it without seeing it as I drew back under the threat 
of the bomb. 

[98] 



THE AEROPLANE 

" Say, how long are you going to let him do 
that? " I ask. 

"Let him do it! . . . You don't mean that, 
Margis, He won't blow on his sauerkraut this 
evening." 

" Wait and see what sort of a menu we 're going 
to serve that ace." 

It was Grizard, an actor in the suburban 
theaters, speaking. He looks like the best natured 
and quietest of men, but he is a pitiless pointer 
who never lets his prey escape. 

" Let me play a little, Margis. See how pretty 
he is, how fine, and how well he flies. It is too 
bad, a pretty little canary like that." 

"Ah! Attention, ladies and gentlemen. Two 
turns, and at three we will commence. You '11 see 
what you will see." 

" On with the music." 

And the music begins the dance. First, come 
slow shots, rhythmic and irregular tac-tacs, spaced 
like the prelude to a slow waltz. Grizard 
is searching for the tune; then, gradually, he 
accelerates the time, and the tac-tac becomes 
faster. 

Now he has the aeroplane in his field of fire 
[99] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

, . . the bullets dance around him in a ring of 
fire, without a break . . . the dance of death ! 

And the circle grows narrower and narrower, 
infernal, pitiless. 

Everyone looks ; there is nothing to see up there ; 
bullets are elusive and invisible, but we make out 
the drama. 

From his rapid evolutions, his sharp darts back 
and forth, his irregular and hurried spirals, we 
understand that the aviator has already been 
reached but is trying to baffle the fire which pur- 
sues him. 

The tac-tac continues. It is Incessant, implac- 
able, ferocious. The silence of death hovers over 
men and things. All Nature seems to await the 
issue of the combat which is no longer doubtful. 

I look at Grizard. Hand on the handle of the 
gun, he follows the evolutions of the aeroplane; 
his eyes shine as at a good trick he is playing on 
the acrobat up there, and softly, with all the de- 
sired expressions, as if he were before his audi- 
ence at Belleville or at the Gaite-Montparnasse, 
he hums : 

Reve de valse, reve d'un jour, 
Valse de reve, valse d' amour. 

[ lOO] 



THE AEROPLANE 

" He 's hit," Sergeant Lace cries suddenly. 

And indeed he is hit. 

The wings waver, bend, warp, and abruptly 
fall in a spiral, while an immense burst of flame, 
which the speed increases immoderately, rises and 
marks the limpid blue of the sky with a long red 
thread which dissolves In the heavens in a trail 
of gold. 

With a noise of broken iron, tearing canvas, 
explosions which recall fireworks, the machine 
smashes into the fields, right where the last bomb 
had destroyed the peaceful herd of cows a moment 
ago. 

We run from all directions, but there Is nothing 
to see. The aeroplane was completely destroyed 
by the fall and the fire, and ends by burning 
itself up. 

It is impossible to get the charred body of the 
aviator out from the smoking ruins. 

Grizard is on the scene with his gun crew, and 
examines his target. 

"Good shot!" 

We congratulate him and begin to go back. 
But Grizard is a comedian who knows his business 
and who has perhaps played a role in the circuits 
[loi] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

in faraway provinces, and he is not a man to miss 
an effect. 

He stands by the roadside in the courteous atti- 
tude of Cyrano de Bergerac pointing out the way 
to the Count de Guiche after amusing him for a 
quarter of an hour. And Grizard, who has 
amused us for a quarter of an hour, but in an- 
other way, points out the road and says: 

" The quarter of an hour is past, Messieurs. I 
release you." 



[ I02] 



CHAPTER IX 

DAYS IN CANTONMENT 

THE regiment is holding the first line 
trenches in front of the La Vache woods. 
When the company is in the lines, the echelons, 
the war train, and the clerks remain behind in the 
cantonment at Morcourt. 

Morcourt is a delightful little village hidden in 
the green meadows under the poplars on the banks 
of the canal of the Somme. Morcourt was once 
a hamlet of one hundred and fifty houses and 
their flower gardens, but to-day it is a real village 
where there are crowded together a population 
of more than ten thousand men. More than 
twenty thousand horses are bivouacked in the 
neighboring villages of Proyart, Lamotte, Bayon- 
villers, which have no water, and they come to 
Morcourt twice a day to dry up the watering 
places. 

Our quarters here are in the open fields. 
Everybody can't have covered shelters. The 
[ 103] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

major of the cantonment showed us the field and 
said, 

" Try to make shift with that." 

And we did. 

Less than an hour later the grass was mowed, 
ground down by our haltered horses, who de- 
voured it with their sharp teeth. 

Beyond, on the edge of the road, in impeccable 
alignment our sixteen ammunition wagons are 
parked. 

Behind are the horses, the huts of the four sec- 
tions of the echelon, and the war train. 

And at the end the four large caissons of am- 
munition and the munition wagons. 

Burette and Morin, the clerks, cannot make a 
simple tent do. More comfortable quarters are 
necessary for their work. 

After a day of hunting around Burette came 
back to camp, radiant. 

" Mon vieux, I 've found something wonderful. 
We '11 live like princes." 

" Where did you get it? " 

" Some fine people. It 's next to the mayor's." 

" Mince! You look well. Did they offer you 
the house? " 

[ 104] 



DAYS IN CANTONMENT 

" You '11 see. It 's better than that." 

*' Better than that! " 

We stamped our feet in impatience. Such a 
windfall is worth while. If we stay here a whole 
month we shall be well lodged. 

I was already rejoicing in the thought of being 
able to build a comfortable bed. 

Saux, on whom devolved the delicate and most 
often difficult care of our getting moved, foresaw 
innumerable conveniences. 

Morin alone remained sceptical. He is that 
temperamentally. 

He sees no good in this north country. He has 
been morose ever since he left Provence, and 
he won't smile again until he hears tinkle in 
his ravished ears the familiar evocative sonorities 
of Avignon, Aries, Miramas, Le Pas des Lan- 
ders, L'Estaque. The sun, the blue sky, the 
blue sea ! 

And how right Morin is! 

The sun exaggerates, but In openness and 
beauty. The fogs are deceitful. . . . Far better 
to be dazzled than deceived. . . . 

Morin distrusts the splendid cantonment of 
Morcourt. He knows those at Proyart, Chuig- 
[ 105 ] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

nolles, Minacourt, Virginy . . . and others 
besides. . . . 

Oh, for the commonest hut, the most modest 
cabin, ruined though it be and sordid, but haloed 
in the sun, flooded with clear light, bathed in the 
silver foliage of the olives, planted down there on 
the rocks of Pointe-Rouge or of L'Estaque, be- 
side the sea, sheltered in the valleys of Camions, 
or perched on the hills of Allauch! How much 
better it is, how much better worth living in, than 
the most sumptuous castles buried in the damp 
forests where the stones are green under the moss. 

High on a hill on the road to Harbonnieres 
opens the courtyard of a farm. 

Burette leads us there in triumph. It is his 
discovery. He crosses the court, and opens ma- 
jestically a small low door, with a barrel on 
each side in which stunted geraniums vegetate 
miserably. 

It is an old pig-sty! 

Scraped and washed with a lot of water, it will 
be habitable. We '11 make something out of it. 
Burette borrows a long table and at once covers 
it with his innumerable account books. We make 
our beds against the walls. 
[io6] 



DAYS IN CANTONMENT 

Thirty ammunition caissons placed in double 
rows, a mattress stuffed with hay, a tent cloth, 
two covers — that 's our camp. 

The corner at the back falls to Morin. It is 
the longest way of the room and he can stretch 
out his whole tall form at his ease, which he rarely 
finds it possible to do in the cantonments. 

Night reserves various distractions for us. 

First, the rats. 

The rats descended from the dove-cote in a 
dense horde and made incursions on our haver- 
sacks, in mad gallops over our bed clothes — 
gigantic rats with interminable tails ! 

They used the open space between the beds as 
their lists and had real battles, biting, crying and 
moaning. The routed fugitives jumped over 
Morin's body to get to shelter and he shivered in 
terror. 

Burette decided to try extreme measures, for 
hunting them with shoes has no effect. So he 
begins to sing one of the most beautiful tunes In 
his repertoire called *' A Montparnasse." It must 
have thirty verses, all ending In an Interminable 
" nasse . . . nasse . . . nasse." 

It seems that It was a triumph of the boule- 
[ 107] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

vards, and no true lover of songs should be ig- 
norant of It. Very possibly. 

The rats must have shared my opinion, how- 
ever, for they seemed to like the great triumph of 
the boulevards only moderately, but they remained 
quiet while the song lasted. 

That song had another virtue, too. It put me 
to sleep and Burette as well. His voice dragged 
more and more, and grew more feeble, when a 
terrible cry pierced the night. 

Morin shouted in terror. 

We jumped for our electric lamps. 

Their dim rays brighten the darkness. 

Above Morin's head, through a hole in the mud 
wall which separates us from the neighboring 
stable, a calf — a young calf — gracious and 
smiling, has stuck his great red head, and has im- 
printed a caress on the face of our sleeping friend 
with his milky tongue. 

"The salaud! He has bitten me," grumbled 
Morin, wiping off the dribble which stuck to his 
face. 

" Get out, animal." 

But the calf was insensible to this harsh invi- 
tation. He continued to endure the flashes from 
[io8] 



DAYS IN CANTONMENT 

our lights with a placid eye, and, drawn no doubt 
by Burette's song, which seemed to him like fa- 
miliar news, he began to bellow, waking up the 
whole stable, and the cows added their powerful 
voices to that of their offspring. . . . We slept 
no more that night. 

The days which followed were not all exactly 
alike. 

The lieutenant sent us word by a cyclist to come 
and see him in the lines and get the list of changes 
to be made among the men and horses. 

We started at daylight and went in the com- 
pany wagon as far as Froissy. When we got 
there, Morin told me that he knew a wonderful 
short cut which avoided the great detour by Eclu- 
sier, and led directly to the communication trench. 
Walking in the wet meadows where we sank in 
up to our ankles had little attraction for me. I 
preferred the hard highway and the towpath, but 
Morin knew the country and claimed that we 
would only have several hundred yards of bad 
walking and then we would reach a practicable 
path. 

We walked more than an hour. The fog grew 
[ 109] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

thicker and thicker, limiting our horizon to a few 
steps. There was never anyone in sight. 

" My dear Morin," I said, " if your short cut 
is as wonderful as you say, it must be known. But 
at the moment it seems somewhat deserted to me." 

Morin did not reply. There was no doubt that 
he was n't certain of his way, but he did not dare 
to admit his mistake. 

The weather inclined one to melancholy. 

We walked on in silence. The path was very 
narrow and we were obliged to walk one behind 
the other. 

A sinister grumbling seemed to shatter the 
heavens above the fog. 

Instinctively we hurled ourselves to the ground 
into the wet grass and mud. 

The shell passed over us and buried itself in the 
ground without exploding. 

" This quarter hardly seems the safest in the 
world, Morin." 

" They 're firing on the battery of ' 75's '." 

"A battery of '75's'? What battery? . . . 
Where have you seen a battery?" 

Although he was seriously disturbed about our 
direction, Morin would not budge, 
[no] 



DAYS IN CANTONMENT 

" It was there day before yesterday. It must 
have moved." 

" I suppose you 're sure your short cut has n't 
changed its place." 

I had scarcely spoken when a shell followed the 
direction of the first and exploded beside us, 
throwing up a mass of mud, grass and water. 
The ground was soft and unfavorable for deadly 
splinters. In any other terrain we would have 
been hit seriously. 

This time Morin hesitated, 
" I 'm afraid I 'm mistaken! . . ." 
" I was sure of it a long time ago." 
"Let's go on just the same; this must bring 
us out somewhere." 

" That 's my opinion, too." 
The fog was still heavy. We walked in a cloud 
the length of an interminable trench recently cut 
in the clay. The bottom was full of water. It 
leads us in an unknown direction. How can we 
find out what way we are going? Where are we? 
We follow its windings for half an hour and 
clamber over crossings. Perhaps we 're going 
around in a circle. The mist is about us all the 
time. We can see nothing. Not a landmark. 
[Ill] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

In the distance far to the north, in the English 
sector, a heavy gun hammers the air with loud 
regular shots. We started out at daybreak to 
go ten miles. It is ten o'clock, now and we have 
no idea where we are. 

I get impatient and begin to grumble. 

The air becomes fresher, and a fairly strong 
breeze comes up. In a few seconds the blue sky 
reappears above our heads. 

In front of us forms stand out — trees, shat- 
tered trees, stretching their dead branches like 
broken arms, and seeming to cry to heaven in en- 
treaty for the martyred earth. 

*' The La Vache woods ! " 

We are in the La Vache woods within sight of 
the enemy's lines. Thirty yards from them ! We 
are on the further side of the trenches, where the 
terrific storm of shells rages daily. We have the 
honor of being the finest target that will ever be 
offered for a shot with a grenade. 

We throw ourselves flat, but the embankment 
overhangs the lines so much that even crawling is 
only a moderate safeguard. 

"Nom de Dieu ! I '11 remember your short cut! 
To go to the Boches it 's the best ever! . . ." 

[II2] 



DAYS IN CANTONMENT 

We slide along on elbows, stomach and knees 
like snakes, which puts our clothes to a severe test. 
And we let ourselves fall head first into the " Ser- 
vian " trench, just over the lieutenant's sap, who 
cannot believe his eyes when he sees us fall as 
from the moon. 

" Where did you come from? " 

" We 've been taking a walk in the La Vache 
woods. Does that mean anything to you? " 

" How did you come? " 

" By a short cut! ... a fine short cut, you 
know. I recommend it to you ! " 

Sub-Lieutenant Delpos was making his rounds 
in the sector and was told of the exploit. He is 
nervous and in a murderous humor, for he spent 
a sleepless night on a special mission between the 
lines. So Morin caught it a hundred times worse 
than he deserved. Sub-Lieutenant Delpos's mo- 
ments of ill humor are, like some storms, violent 
but quickly over. The adventure ended with an 
excellent cup of coffee, flavored with XXX brandy, 
which he offers us in his sap, sumptuously fur- 
nished with every possible comfort, twelve yards 
underground. 

Towards midnight I went down to Eclusier 
[113] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

through an English observation trench. It is only 
accessible at night. In the daytime a Boche ma- 
chine gun is placed on the other side of the Somme 
and enfilades it. It is suicide to venture there. 
Cut out of the rock in the hillside, its ridges are 
short and steep. It is a bad trench, but an impor- 
tant short cut. . . . Saux should be waiting for 
me with the horses in a ruined house behind the 
church. 

Eclusier is a hamlet on the left side of the canal. 
There is a single street with ragged houses on each 
side, but they are not badly ruined. The church, 
protected by a bend in the cliff, still has its steeple 
intact through some prodigy of equilibrium, al- 
though the roof has fallen in. At the side, in what 
was once the presbytery, is the regimental dress- 
ing station. 

Lights come and go. 

Men are coming back from fatigue duty, 
searching for their dugouts by feeling for them. 
Through the air-holes, from which come odors 
of cooking, one can see lighted cellars. 

I make my way by the aid of my electric lamp 
through this labyrinth which was once a street, 
and I find the house. I guess at it, rather, from 
[114] 



DAYS IN CANTOiNMENT 
the pawing of the horses, which are nervous and 
are pounding on the flagstones. It is an old 
grocery and its sign still reads: "Fine Wines-— 
Desserts — Choice Preserves." A ragged green 
cart cover takes the place of the door. I raise it. 
A gust of foul air hits me in the face, and I stop 
on the threshold gasping for breath. I see Saux 
asleep, his head on my saddle, and rolled up in 
horse blankets. Burette Is asleep beside him. 

Burette, the quartermaster, spent three months 
in the heavy artillery. He is an enthusiast on 
horses, but his equestrian ability Is far from 
equaling his love for It. His style produces many 
falls, but they don't discourage him. 

I wake up Saux, who gets up dizzily. Is he 
half drunk, I ask myself. That 's not like him 
at all. 

" Look, Saux, what 's the matter? " 
But Saux leaned against the partition, search- 
ing for the door with his haggard eyes. He 
dashed outside seized by nausea. The noise woke 
up Burette, and he too got up with difficulty. 
" Say, what have you two been up to? " 
" Oh, mon pauvre vieux, I don't know, but I 'm 
sick." 

[115] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

" The fact is there is considerable of an odor 
here; you might have found a better . . ." 

The horses are troubled by it, too. Kiki jumps 
about and paws furiously. Burette's and Saux's 
horses are sleeping heavily and their breathing 
is difficult and oppressive. 

There 's something wrong somewhere, although 
the enemy has n't sent over any gas. 

With the aid of a light we poke about in the 
dark. I see a pile of canvas in the corner of the 
room which is oozing with dampness. I raise 
the bottom of the canvas with my stick and a 
swarm of great flies comes buzzing out around us. 

There are the bodies of German soldiers aban- 
doned for no one knows how long. Weeks, per- 
haps; since the attack on Fries without doubt. 
The blue swollen flesh is spotted by bites made 
by the teeth of rats. They are rotting and filling 
the soil with purulent matter. 

With their monstrous faces, sunken eyes, cheeks 
fallen in, and their mouths convulsed by their last 
struggles, they seem still to shout with the fright 
of their last hours. Burette and Saux have slept 
beside this charnel-house. 

We lead out the horses in a hurry and saddle 
[ii6] 



DAYS IN CANTONMENT 

them In the open air. We gain the hard towpath, 
the only practicable way, and go on at a lively 
pace. 

The first light of dawn appears. At the bridge 
at Eclusier we stop a minute before climbing Into 
the saddle. The Territorials there offer us a 
cup of coffee. It warms us, for the morning fog 
on the Somme Is always cold. 

"To horse!" 

I decide to go at a good pace as far as the 
bridge at Frolssy and take the lead. We must 
get along before the towpath Is encumbered by 
all the loafers of the companies which are resting 
in the huts along the length of the canal. 

A battery of " 75's " in position near the mili- 
tary cemetery at Cappy Is firing shells. 

We pass very close to some guns as they are 
starting off. Coquet Is frightened, jumps, and 
dashes Into the fields, heading straight toward the 
hedges of some vegetable gardens. 

" Attention ! Burette, pull on the bits." 

" Don't be afraid. He knows me." 

He knows him so well that Burette had scarcely 
spoken than Coquet stopped short before the 
fence. Burette went over alone, head first, and 
[117] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

landed In the vegetables. Fortunately, the ground 
is soft, but in hurdling the obstacle he bumped 
into some bushes, and gets an eye bruised and a 
cheek scratched. 

" That 's nothing. That 's all right," he says. 

He remounts his horse, laughing and singing: 

Ah! les p'tits pois, les p'tits pois, 
C'est un legume tres tendre. 

He can appreciate them this time. 

We meet Hemin, our comrade of the third 
company of machine guns, at Frolssy. He came 
out at dawn with orders from his commandant 
and is going back to Morcourt, and we go along 
together. 

Going from this bridge to that at Mericourt, 
the towpath is almost deserted. Hardly anything 
crosses our path except some English motor- 
cyclists. 

Hemin is riding a superb charger, a great long- 
legged, bright chestnut, who carries his head 
proudly — a fine beast. 

Some yards away from the branch from Neu- 
ville marines from the gunboats have planted huts 
along the towpath between the poplars. 
[ii8] 



DAYS IN CANTONMENT 

The regular trot of our horses sounds clearly 
along the way. 

A marine hears us and raises the flap of his 
tent to see us. 

This frightens Hemin's horse and he jumps into 
the canal. 

Our comrade is unhorsed and disappears under 
the water. We jump down. But even before we 
jump two marines have plunged in. Others poke 
around with poles in the mud from a boat. In 
an eddy a hand appears, then a head, swollen, 
bloody, crushed. 

Hemin got a blow from a shoe full in the face 
and could not swim. 

The body is brought on to the bank. 

A surgeon from the gunboat doubles his efforts 
in vain. 

Hemin is dead. 

We buried him in the little cemetery at Meri- 
court one Sunday morning. 

It is the ideal cemetery of the poets, hidden 

in green from every sound. Each grave seems 

alone in a thicket of lilacs and honeysuckle. No 

scientific gardening here; no trees butchered by 

[119] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

experts; no cultivated flowers; no bombastic mar- 
bles. The grass overruns the paths; the simple 
flowers of the field have blossomed on the graves, 
thus bringing in every season the natural homage 
which returning life pays to the dead. 

Nature is pleased to shut every sound from this 
field of rest. 

At the end of a lane, at the foot of a willow, 
we lay Hemin to rest in his last sleep. 

The men of the echelon come, the major, a 
captain, and the ofl^cers who knew him particu- 
larly well. The intelligence officers of the three 
companies joined in buying a wreath and came 
to the services together. 

Hemin's captain speaks a few words. It is not 
the time for a long talk, for a simple touching 
farewell is sufficient. 

And before he goes each one throws in the 
grave the symbolic bit of earth. 

Sad duty! 

Before the grave is filled in I drop over him 
petals of peonies. . . . 

Poor fellow ! He is not the most unfortunate. 
He is in that luminous land of day and knows 
what we are powerless to know. He has finished 
[ 120] 



DAYS IN CANTONMENT 

with our poor human troubles, and on him have 
fallen the curtains of his last resting place. 

But those who are left, his wife, his child ! . . . 
That is where sorrow begins. They don't know 
yet, and for a long time they will know nothing 
and will live in anxiety. 

To-day, at the very hour perhaps, when we let 
him down in his last resting place, his wife re- 
ceived the letter he wrote her yesterday morning. 
She read this letter to her child, this letter in 
which he announces his next arrival on leave, 
where he said to her, 

" In a week or two I shall be with you without 
a doubt." He never will be now, or, rather, he 
is there already, for the immaterial presence of 
loved ones accompanies us, if it is true that they 
are loved and are not forgotten. 

And pensively, under the fine rain which is 
falling, we return to our cantonments. 



[I2I] 



CHAPTER X 

AN ORDINARY FATIGUE PARTY 

THIS evening the first section has to go on 
the works. The men have eaten earlier 
than usual, and they are on the road before 
nightfall. 

The column remains in good order to the end 
of the cantonment, but once across the passage 
by the knotty elm at Harbonnieres, it breaks ranks. 
Each one goes along as he likes, talking or alone. 

There is madness in the air. We prefer an- 
other order of things than to spend one evening 
out of two in the first line digging in the mud. 

" Rather the trenches where we can snooze in 
peace," they say. 

The column trails along. Pierron, the sergeant 
who leads it, pays no attention. With Millazo, 
a tradesman from Hanoi who has arrived just 
recently, he talks of Indo-China, of Saigon, and 
their gardens. 

We had scarcely arrived at the end of the 

[ 122 ] 



AN ORDINARY FATIGUE PARTY 

sunken road which opens out on an uncovered 
slope on top of a ridge than a well-known whistling 
shatters space. Each of us throws himself on 
the ground, in a ditch behind a tree, and the shell 
passes over us in the air. 

" That was n't meant for us." 

Then another, still another, and dozens like 
it; we count up to sixty. 

" M . . . what are they having at Proyart for 
dessert? " 

That is all the concern they have about what 
is going on in the rear, or about the havoc and 
death the bombardment is launching at this mo- 
ment on the cantonment where their comrades 
live. That is the egotistical indifference which 
long experience with danger gives, and the con- 
stant contemplation of death. The column 
marches along more carefully and wider awake, 
concealing themselves from the view of the 
enemy's aerial observers which are to be seen 
high on the horizon in spite of the late hour and 
the twilight which has already begun to grow 
dark. 

" Do you suppose they 've forgotten the 
sausage? " 

[123] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

" Sometimes they stay out to give us a shot." 

So we wait until it is very dark before we reach 
our position in the works. 

The place where we have to dig is in the front 
lines. We have to construct circular dugouts for 
machine guns, with their rounded platforms, and 
to connect them with the trench by underground 
trenches. 

We climb over the trench carrying our tools 
in our hands and slip between the barbed wire, 
but we have scarcely gone a yard when a heavy 
fusillade warns us that this time we are spotted. 
We dig in. 

" Is anyone hit? " 

No reply, no groans; everyone is there, flat, 
stretched out. We wait flat in the grass and the 
mud until the star shells fall, and as soon as one 
has, and before the following one has scaled 
through space and lighted it with its dim light, we 
jump into the hole which the fatigue party of 
yesterday dug. 

But the tools are n't idle, although we guess 
rather than hear the blows of the pick digging 
in the deep rich earth and the shovelers throwing 
[ 124] 



AN ORDINARY FATIGUE PARTY 

it out as far on the parapet as possible so as not 
to form a salient. 

We dig for hours without interruption, lower- 
ing our heads in the holes as the star shells go 
up, and taking up our tasks as soon as it is dark 
again. 

The enemy has discovered the time of our 
fatigue parties, and to-morrow it will know the 
exact position of our work, so that it will be 
somewhat uncomfortable to continue. It must 
be finished to-night. 

A company of Territorials is stretching barbed 
wire on our right. 

Between each star shell we can hear the ham- 
mering of the sledges against the stakes, the strain 
of the tension on the wire, and when the traitor- 
ous light shines again these wonderful workers 
don't even hide. They remain hanging on the 
barbed wire, motionless and disjointed like corpses. 
They look so much like them that the enemy 
does n't even fire, as he feels certain that he has 
annihilated this gang which heroically continues 
its gigantic task. 

"Look! . . . they're like statues." 
[125] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

" One would think It was a party . . . there 
are the lights and the orchestra." 

The time for supplying the company in the lines 
comes. The men of the field kitchens come by 
groups of three or four from the trenches just 
behind us. 

The first two have a long rod on their shoulders 
and rolls of bread on this. Others carry in can- 
vas pails and kettles come from nowhere the cov- 
eted wine and the aromatic brandy. Others bend 
under the weight of pots which hold lumpy black 
bean soup, which splashes out at every jolt in the 
path. It is already cold and greasy. Finally, the 
mess corporal reaches the end of his trip and 
draws out of his sack the desserts bought with 
the mess balance and the commissions given to 
him the day before by the men in the trenches. 
The pockets of his jackets are full of letters he 
has just received from the officer with the mail, 
and which he delivers to the men who have been 
waiting for them hungrily. 

When he gets as far as the fatigue party he 

stops and hesitates. He must go over a space 

of fifty yards, absolutely exposed, to the edge 

of a group of trees where there Is a first-line 

[126] 



AN ORDINARY FATIGUE PARTY 

trench taken from the Boches In the last attack 
and not yet connected with the communication 
trench. 

He has reason for his hesitation, for the last 
two days the Boche trench on our left has been 
firing on it heavily. 

Day before yesterday an entire fatigue party 
was killed. We can see there in front of us the 
abandoned sacks and scattered packages. Five 
men out of eight were killed yesterday. The 
others were able to get over some of the provi- 
sions and the bad news by crawling, and at the 
price of a thousand risks. They also took the 
rest of the provisions from the bodies of their 
comrades who carried them. To-day they ad- 
vanced the time of bringing the supplies an hour 
in order to foil the enemy's vigilance. This time 
the mess corporal accompanied the fatigue party 
himself to discover, if possible, a less perilous 
mode of communication. But the Boches must 
have been on the watch, or guessed or got wind 
of it somehow. The star shells now follow each 
other with no let-up, lighting up the road so that 
one can't venture on it. Under this too persistent 
light the Territorials abandon their simulation of 

[I27l 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

corpses and seek shelter in the trench to which 
we are getting ready to return. 

It is necessary for the supplies to go on. The 
company in the front line has had only insufficient 
provisions for two days. 

The mess corporal is a brave man and makes 
several attempts to venture outside, but each time 
he is received by a fusillade and only has time 
to throw himself backward in the trench. 

The fatigue party has been watched and waited 
for. 

We hold a council of the non-commissioned 
officers and the lieutenant of the Territorials 
which has held the position for several weeks. 
Various stratagems are proposed and we weigh 
the chances, but after consideration all of them 
are vetoed. It is impossible to get by even at the 
greatest speed without risking the lives of several 
men, and perhaps of all. 

Still, if we were able to draw the attention of 
the Boches, to occupy them with something else, 
to enfilade them, to shell them. 

" Enfilade them . . . shell them. . . ." 

" Is n't there some place from which we can 
enfilade them? " 

[128] 



AN ORDINARY FATIGUE PARTY 

And we all considered in our minds the position 
of the Boche trenches. 

" We can't do anything from here," said a ser- 
geant who had spent various periods in these 
trenches for several months, and knew every cor- 
ner of it; "but below there to the left, about a 
hundred yards from the picket post, is a ruined 
cabin which dominates everything. But there 's 
nothing doing in getting there; it's too near; 
they 'd see us as plain as day." 

One of our men heard all this. And while the 
conversation went on, I saw him climb up on the 
parapet and examine the position. 

It was Marseille, an impetuous, headstrong 
type. He rebelled at all discipline, he was restive 
under observation, but his bravery was unfailing, 
and he was absolutely oblivious to danger, which 
he ignored with a swagger and indifference which 
seemed amazing. Marseille has known one hun- 
dred thousand adventures and turned one hundred 
thousand tricks, and has always come back 
absolutely unharmed. 

When he was on his last leave he spent six 
unrestrained days in innumerable drinking bouts 
in all the bars at La Cannebiere, where he nar- 
[ 129] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

rated his boasted deeds of prowess, which were 
probably much inferior to the real ones. Then, 
instead of going back, he waited for them to come 
and get him. He was arrested on the eighth day 
and brought back to the Corps by the provost. 
Marseille was not the least upset when the officer 
demanded the reasons for his delay, and replied: 

" I don't like to travel alone. I like society, I do. 
So I have had a whole car to myself and my escort. 
And besides, I knew very well that the gendarmes 
would n't come from Marseilles here without buy- 
ing a drink, and they wouldn't have the nerve to lap 
It all up without offering me some. I like the gend- 
armes. That may seem strange to you. but I do." 

Marseille is a good singer and his number 
appears in all the company concerts. His throat 
is as clear as the sunny lights of La Corniche and 
L'Esterel, and he can render the final trills of 
the Neapolitan songs with the best. 

When he had finished his rapid observation he 
came back to our anxious group and spoke to 
the mess corporal : 

"You '11 be all right, tnonvieux. You '11 get there." 

And we all looked at him in open-mouthed sur- 
prise at such assurance. 

[130] 



AN ORDINARY FATIGUE PARTY 

"Have you any news or an idea? Explain. 
Tell us something about It. Let us see." 

" You '11 get there, as I told you. Don't bother 
about those fellows over there. That 's my job. 
Watch me." 

And to the lieutenant who was getting ready 
to question him : 

" You have a machine gun, have n't you. Lieu- 
tenant. . . . Won't you lend It to me . . . just a 
minute? It 's a Saint EtIenne. I know that. . . . 
I know them all. . . . They 're all the same. . . . 
And five belts with It to amuse the Boches for five 
minutes. . . . That '11 be enough for the cooks 
to get over." 

We understood it all, and we laughed and ad- 
mired him. Marseille rolled up the barrel of the 
machine gun and the belts In several thicknesses 
of canvas, tied a rope to it and attached the other 
end to his wrist. 

" Hold on to the package so that It won't make 
trouble on the stones, and when I pull on the rope 
twice, let it come." 

And he crawled out of the trench and slid down 
towards the ruined hut. 

We waited anxiously the full ten minutes. We 
[131] . 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

watched the cord unroll with varying emotions. 
It stopped, stood still, immovable. Has he 
arrived? 

Then we felt the two jerks, and the lieutenant 
let the heavy package slide, and it got mixed up 
in the stakes, rocks, and gullies, and made such 
a metallic noise that it could not help attracting 
the Boche's attention. And it had an effect. The 
enemy believed that we were making some sort 
of a movement, and launched in our direction a 
heavy fusillade which we refrained from an- 
swering. 

Again ten minutes passed . . . they were 
interminable. 

Then suddenly came the machine gun . . . 
ours . . . Marseille's. 

Slowly at first, it sent out its irregular tap-tap, 
then the cadence became faster, and then a steady 
crackle. The Boches were taken in the flank and 
thought that we were making an attack, and Mar- 
seille, who saw them running by the light of their 
star shells, shouted out, 

" Forward, the cooks, run, nom de Dieu! " 

The fatigue party rushed out at top speed. 
Soup spatters from all sides. The rations of wine 
[ 132] 



AN ORDINARY FATIGUE PARTY 

and coffee will be short. The men disappear in 
the wood. They are over; they are safe. 

Now the German bullets are raging to our left 
about the hut; rockets go up asking for artillery. 
In front of our lines close to us explosions rock 
the ground. Their artillery is firing in the right 
place. The fatigue party is over but the Boches 
have another prey. By this time Marseille is 
stewing away in the ruins of his shelter. 

While the shelling lasts we discuss his last feat, 
safe in the sap, while we munch the last of our 
cold repast. Then, as dawn begins to appear and 
we have to return to the cantonment at daybreak, 
we begin to get ready to go. Before we go we 
share a bucket of wine which the overloaded 
fatigue party couldn't carry in its dash and 
abandoned. 

But a shadow stands before us in the sap. 

" So they share their leavings and there is none 
for the hungry? " 

It is Marseille, safe and sound, whole, without 
a scratch. Everyone crowds around him, and the 
officer runs up. 

" And now, if you '11 pull in that string, you 'II 
[ 133] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

bring back the tools. I 'm sore on that machine. 
You know, Lieutenant, that gun was n't our 
Hotchkiss. I had to dismantle the breech; it 
jammed at once. I could n't have fired more than 
half a belt. Fortunately, they gave me light with 
their star shells; I couldn't have done it without 
them." 



[134] 



CHAPTER XI 

WITH MUSIC 

WE are in reserve cantonments at Chuig- 
nolles, and we all lodge together at the 
end of the village, near the church, in a large 
house, which is n't injured much and which once 
served the servants of the presbytery. We were 
shaken up in our last action, and they give us 
comparatively generous liberty, no manoeuvres, no 
reviews, and no drills. The section leaders have 
seen to the arms and ammunition and have se- 
cured an entirely new equipment from the ord- 
nance officer. 

The infantry have turned gunners over to us to 
fill up our ranks. 

The lieutenant recommends the men to distract 
themselves with games, gossip and songs. 

At his solicitation we organized a concert, sev- 
eral concerts, in fact. Each section has its artists 
which it believes in and of which it is proud. 

One evening in the garden adjoining the offi- 
[135] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

cers' quarters we were endeavoring to draw out 
the meal by chatting, but conversation flagged as 
night drew near. So Sub-Lieutenant Delpos, who 
was opposed to dreaming as engendering melan- 
choly, demanded a concert at once, immediately. 

The cantonments were scattered about in the 
surrounding gardens. 

'* Crohare," he said, " run to each section and 
bring back artists — all the artists in each com- 
pany must be here in five minutes." 

And five minutes later they were there. All the 
company, too, for each section followed its artists, 
who were to shine in all the glory of their reper- 
toire before the officers and the " little staff." 

We had singers, comedians and speakers, pro- 
fessional and amateur. Jacquet gave with exqui- 
site artistry several delightful songs, the words of 
which he had composed and adapted to well-known 
tunes. The " Lettre a la Marriane " was really 
touching. 

Gaix and Corporal Vail sang with real talent 
and gave us a full repertoire from the operas. 
The indefatigable Marseille gave, in a hilarious 
gibberish, an Italian-Marseilles thing which 
brought down the house with wild laughter. 
[136] 



WITH MUSIC 

" It 's too bad we have n't a piano to play the 
accompaniments," said someone. 

" A piano ! I '11 attend to that," said the ever- 
resourceful Chevalier. " Four men in my bunch, 
and I '11 bring it at once." 

Some minutes later the party brought in an 
enormous harmonium which it had found in a 
room of the presbytery. That harmonium had 
been the silent witness of famous battles, had been 
taken and retaken with the village. It had played 
" Die Wacht an Rhein " under the German heel, 
the " Reve Passe " with the artillery, " Sidi- 
Brahim " with our Blue Devils, and it was still in 
good condition and almost all the notes played. 

" And now we have a piano, we must have a 
player." 

" Oh, there, * Father Music' You know this 
is your job. You played for us last summer in the 
church at Minaucourt." 

" Father Music " smiled gravely and pushed 
his way through the groups. 

A candle stuck in the neck of a champagne 
bottle and placed on the harmonium lighted up 
his Christlike face with a golden light. 

He seated himself, without stopping smiling, 
[137] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

on a pile of ammunition caissons which served as 
a piano stool, and — honor to whom honor is due 
— since we are machine gunners, he begins the 
"Song of the Machine Gun," with Gaix singing 
the first stanza. 

'* Father Music " stands out in the light in the 
middle of the dark, night and this group of a hun- 
dred men who one surmises are there, rather than 
sees, squatting on the grass around the instrument. 

Under his cap thrown back on his head the hair 
shows sparse and thin, his beard is large and 
tangled, and he smiles through his large, clear 
eyes. His lips move with the singer, and he sings 
the song with as much fervor and composure as if 
he were chanting a Halleluiah. 

"Father Music I " . . . 

He is a fine figure in our society, rich in epic 
types. 

I have seen him near us for some weeks, as 
much in our echelon as in the company of which 
he assumes the duties of infirmary orderly. I 
have learned to know him, and to know him is to 
love him. 

By scraps, by fragments of phrases, for he 
[138] 



WITH MUSIC 

speaks but little — little of himself, but instead 
launches out in real flights of declamation about 
an idea, a poem, a well-known tune, the names of 
artists — I have been able bit by bit and through 
deductions almost to reconstruct his life. 

He is a quiet man in all his ways, habits and 
ideas. He lived in the quarter of Saint-Sulpice in 
an old house in the quiet Rue Madame, and made 
his living by giving music lessons in the institu- 
tions in the neighborhood. 

They knew him in the quarter as " Monsieur 
Placide." On the appointed days at the same 
hours he went to the Nuns of the Immaculate 
Conception, to the Brothers of the Sacred Heart, 
or to special lessons in the city, without ever wan- 
dering far away from the quarter, in the old vener- 
able houses. In the Rues d'Assas and Garanciere. 

On Sundays he played the organ in a small 
chapel of the Visitation Sisters. 

The people knew little about him through social 
Intercourse, for he never went out, or rarely. In 
summer he sometimes went to the Tulleries to 
listen to secular music — and that is all. 

When in August, 19 14, the notices of mobili- 
zation called all able-bodied men to arms, his 
[ 139] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

orders were to join a regiment of Colonial in- 
fantry in a fort around Paris. 

This man lived a regular life apart from dan- 
gerous contingencies, and was unacquainted with 
worldly ambitions and political strife, but he went 
to war knowing nothing of it, and considering it 
only a little and then through a professional view- 
point, as a sort of great drama in which he was 
going to play a comparatively passive role. 

Under the cap and great coat of the infantry- 
man, bristling all over with equipment, he was the 
typical " poilu " — the poilu of tradition. His 
large beard covered the front of his brown coat, 
and this gave him the proud appearance of a 
veteran. 

At first he was going to sacrifice this thick beard 
which he had spared since his liberation from his 
regiment, but his officers wanted him to keep it. 
That brought him a place at the head of the com- 
pany on the march, and he drew all eyes. He 
was the poilu. 

His reputation as a musician who played on any 
and all instruments was quickly known through- 
out the cantonments. So he was at all the cere- 
monies and all the merrymakings. In the morn- 
L 140] 



WITH MUSIC 

Ing on a harmonium carried to an open field he 
might accompany a mihtary mass said by stretcher- 
bearers, while that evening he might play on a 
chance piano, perhaps on the same harmonium, 
at improvised concerts, accompanying jolly, broad 
songs sung by amateurs and playing the national 
hymns of the Allies, and astonishing even himself 
in the patriotic choruses. 

And this man to whom everything that was not 
classical or the Gregorian chant was strange, who 
for twenty years of his life had taught successive 
generations Mehul, Gluck, Bach, Mozart and 
Beethoven, to whom Massenet, Delibes and 
Gounod seemed profane, surprised himself by 
pounding out on a badly-tuned piano and singing 
with all his might the refrains of " Viens Pou- 
poule," popular marches, and the ballads of the 
faubourg. 

The soldiers had quickly named him " Father 
Music " and this nickname pleased him immensely. 

That night an order came from the commanding 
officer: 

*' Two companies of machine guns will go with 
the utmost haste to Hill 174, northwest of Herbe- 
[141] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

court, to stop the enemy which is trying to out- 
flank our right." 

At three o'clock in the morning we were at the 
position indicated. 

A small chapel with a cross was situated on the 
top of the hill. The open space in front com- 
mands the road which descends gradually toward 
the Mereaucourt woods where the enemy is 
concealed. 

We fortify our position in a few minutes. On 
both sides of the road a gun sweeps the slope and 
the approaches and guards the way out of the 
woods. In the little belfry which is shaped like 
a dove-cote another gun commands the woods 
and can disturb evolutions in the wood itself. 

We use the material at hand to fortify our 
emplacements — bits of benches, a door of a con- 
fessional, and the railings of the chapel. 

At our right across the road a company of rifle- 
men also establish entrenchments, so well camou- 
flaged that the enemy cannot see them until in its 
zone of fire, that is to say, too late. 

The officer, a young sub-lieutenant, asks us not 
to fire until he gives the signal. He has the 
idea — and a good one — to let the enemy ad- 
[ 142] 



WITH MUSIC 

vance and come up the road. Here he would be 
unable to execute a converging movement and 
our gun in the belfry would sweep the right side 
of the road and prevent his turning aside, the 
company of riflemen would protect the left, and 
his section of Grenadiers would attack on the 
road. 

We are confident of the strength of our posi- 
tions and our means of resistance, and we wait 
for the launching of the attack without anxiety. 

" Father Music " has organized his dressing 
station in the chapel in the shelter of the altar 
and now wanders around the building. 

The church recalls familiar surroundings to 
him and he delights in looking at it. There are 
a few simple frescoes, pictures of the Crucifixion, 
where gigantic men stand out in relief against 
a background of microscopic mountains and Lili- 
putian houses, and they interest him. 

He lets his fingers wander over the keyboard 
of the harmonium which lies forgotten in the 
choir. 

His comrades jeer, 

" ' Father Music ' is going to play our De 
Profttndis.^^ 

[143] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

But the quiet does not last long. Towards five 
o'clock a frightful fire begins all at once. The 
troops in the front-line trenches, at the bottom 
of the hill, are decimated and cut down by a furi- 
ous fire; they retreat and take refuge behind the 
defense works of the village. 

We make our final preparations. Evidently the 
enemy is going to try to take the village and has 
already begun its destruction. A storm of great 
shells falls on the trenches, very near us, some 
yards behind the houses. We hear terrific explo- 
sions, the falling of roofs, and fires break out 
everywhere. 

An order from the commander of the sector 
reaches us, " Maintain the position and hold on 
until the companies of reinforcements arrive." 

The bombardment becomes more and more 
violent. As the sound of each shell whistles 
through the air we wonder if this infernal machine 
is going to strike in our dugout this time. And 
every two minutes, mathematically, the uproar 
comes again and this unimaginable suffering con- 
tinues some hours. At the sound of each shell we 
close our eyes. We think of the loved ones with 
a calm certainty of never seeing them again. We 
[ 144] 



WITH MUSIC 

begin to wish that it would end at once, rathe 
than have to endure this terrible nervous tension 
longer. 

And the reinforcements cannot advance under 
the avalanche of fire and shell. Are they going 
to let us be massacred on the spot without defense ? 

The Teuton artillery imagines that they have 
cleared the objective and their fire dies down. 
Cautiously but confident of their superiority and 
tactics, the Germans now appear in numbers. 

Suddenly, violently, like a clap of thunder the 
"Marseillaise" bursts on our ears — tremen- 
dously. 

It rushes out through all the breaches in the 
church; it comes through the cracks; it goes up 
through the fallen roof; it traverses the shattered 
windows. It unites in itself all human and celes- 
tial voices. The soul of a whole nation, the spirit 
of ancient glories, animates the old organ which 
sings its last song. 

With all the strength of its breath, with all the 
breath of its pipes, filled to bursting, with all the 
sonority of its bass, its horns, its flutes and violins, 
the organ hurls forth the sacred song. 

And it is not only the hymn of triumphant 
[145] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

Liberty and the indignation of an avenging people 
in the face of the invader. Magnified by the litur- 
£ cal sounds on the ritualistic instrument of sacred 
music, it is the Hosanna of Glory, the Sursam 
Corda of Faith, confident in the approaching vic- 
tory, the Resurexit of the triumphant Past, and 
the De Profundis of brutal domination. 

And Deside all that, all the songs of glory, all 
the exaltations of faith, all the clamor of Grego- 
rian theogony vibrate in the notes of the 
" Marseillaise." 

Under the humble vault of a hamlet chapel the 
organ plays the twice-blessed music, and intones 
the splendid Magnificat of the Republic, the hymn 
of the Trinity, thrice human, thrice divine. Lib- 
erty, Fraternity and Equality. 

And, dominating all the sonorities of the organ, 
a thousand voices unite in a sublime burst of song, 

" Aux armes, citoyens! . . ." 

" Grenades I " commands the lieutenant. 

The men, electrified, mouths half open, the 

machines In their hands, spring out of the trench 

In the teeth of the enemy, but two steps from him. 

And with an Irresistible dash they charge him, 

[146] 



WITH MUSIC 

follow him, crumble him. The Teutons flee in 
terror. . . . 

Night has fallen. Under a sky reddened by 
the lights of fires deep silence is over everything. 
Numerous reinforcements have arrived. The re- 
conquered positions have been reorganized at 
once. 

The general has been told of the exploit and 
he congratulates the officers and men, and prom- 
ises them rewards. He also expresses a desire to 
see the church from which came the martial hymn 
which electrified the company. 

All is dark. . . . 

At the back near the altar a small lantern 
lightens the darkness ... we approach. 

On the ruined harmonium, forever silent now, 
" Father Music " sleeps. . . . 



[147] 



CHAPTER XII 

" WE HAVE TAKEN A PICKET POST " 
(" Communique du ") 

THE asphyxiating shells which have been 
falling around us for forty-eight hours 
without a let-up have ceased. This morning the 
first rays of the sun filtered through the layers of 
gas and seemed to evaporate them. This lull 
was opportune. Our masks have long since been 
glued to our faces, and loosened by our heavy 
breathing they no longer adhere hermetically and 
begin to let in the toxins. 

At last we are able to breathe at will and 
swallow our share of pure air. 

Our sap opens on the side of a great quarry and 
commands the whole valley of the Somme. At 
our feet is the canal and towpath, at the right in 
a group of trees in the middle of the marshes are 
the ruins of Froissy; opposite us, behind the but- 
tress of the La Vache woods, is the steeple of 
Eclusier. 

[ 148 ] 



"WE HAVE TAKEN A PICKET POST" 

The open space in front of our dugout forms 
a sort of terrace. Here we have laid out tables 
and dug seats in the chalk of the quarry. Men 
are descending by real scaling paths to get water 
from the canal, although it is against the major's 
explicit orders. 

The towpath Is visible from the enemy's 
trenches on the other side of the Somme. Dur- 
ing the preceding days, those who tried to fol- 
low it to get back to Eclusier more easily were 
wounded by the fire of a machine gun which 
sweeps the way. 

Our men come back from this expedition with- 
out accident, and we are able to proceed to our 
summary ablutions. We have not been able to 
do that for six days, and it is a real delight to 
feel the fresh water on our eyes and to rid the 
skin of its sticky moisture. 

Two of our sections hold the first-line trenches 
twenty yards in front of us. We must relieve 
them presently. . . . 

The artillery is still silent, and without a doubt 
the enemy has given up the stroke he was prepar- 
ing. He was counting on the usual morning mist 
of the Somme, but this morning the air is very 
[ 149] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

clear without a suspicion of fog. A fresh breeze 
blows from the north. 

As we wait for the hour of relief, we talk, and 
an interminable game of cards goes on. 

During the dark dreary days of forced seclu- 
sion In the bottom of the sap I discovered a very 
fine fellow, one of our comrades whom I had not 
had occasion to notice until then. He was very 
simple, talked but little, lived by himself, and I 
did not know his name. 

Chance placed us side by side and permitted me 
to engage him in conversation. 

Under a rough, taciturn appearance I found a 
soul full of kindness, a life touched by sacrifice, 
kindly, modest, the heroism of the humble who 
live simply for their long, hard tasks without com- 
plaining and without anyone being able to pity 
them in their sorrow and lighten their burdens. 

One night — was it night? — hermetically 
sealed in the deep sap, lighted only by the waver- 
ing light of scanty candles, all our hours were 
nocturnal. Without the irregular arrival of 
supply parties we would have been absolutely 
ignorant of the flight of time. 

One night, when the bombardment seemed to 
[150] 



"WE HAVE TAKEN A PICKET POST" 

reach the final height of violence, when each blow 
shook our dugout, and the props groaned and 
threatened to yield — it would have been a merci- 
less burial — our looks crossed and I read in his 
eyes a deep sorrow. 

In spite of my natural reserve, out of respect to 
his deep suffering I was unable to contain myself 
long. 

" Comrade," I said, " I read in your looks a 
great sorrow." 

He seemed to come back to reality when he 
heard my voice ! 

" Fate has placed us near each other for some 
days. We don't know what to-morrow may bring. 
Can't I be of some use? Aid you in any way? 
Tell me!" 

His eyes tried to smile a thanks. I saw his 
lips contract and then came tears, and before I 
could say anything he leaned his head on my 
shoulder and wept deeply. 

It was not weakness, despair, or fear, but the 
unbridling of a heart shut up too long, the great 
gasp of a soul heavy with mental sorrows which 
might at last open itself, the gentle rain which 
brought the stifling storm of the nerves to an end. 
[i5i] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

He confided his life history to me in a few 
words. 

He was a simple artisan of the laboring class, 
and his life had been full of grief and sorrow. 
After some years of struggles, and cares and stress 
together with his beloved companion, a daughter 
was born. But in coming into the world she took 
the life of her mother. And then he found him- 
self alone in the world with this puny frail crea- 
ture, born in grief and raised in sorrow. 

In addition to his great love for her as a father 
he added his worship of the departed one. He 
limited his life to his grief, and made his house 
a memorial chapel where every object was a votive 
offering to his absent beloved and a relic of the 
ever-present dead. He adorned the little girl 
with her mother's modest jewelry, and cut her 
clothes from those she had worn. 

Through this double love which he poured out 
on this child, she became his only reason for exist- 
ence, his whole life. 

The little girl was ten years old to-day. 

Brought up in the seclusion of the tabernacle, 

she had taken up her role conscientiously. She 

was quieter than most children of her age, and 

[152] 



"WE HAVE TAKEN A PICKET POST" 

attentive to her father's slightest wish. As she 
grew up she developed into the very image of her 
mother, and the poor man began to live again as 
in a dream the days of his happy past. 

When war broke out the Implacable mobiliza- 
tion tore him from the fireside he had never left 
before. Living alone as they did, they had no 
friends and knew of no relatives. 

He went, trusting the house to her and all their 
modest property, only recommending her to the 
watch of a neighbor, of a concierge. 

But fortified by example, she suddenly grew up 
through the grief of this weighty separation, and 
the girl was already sufficient for the role as 
guardian of the hearth. 

Ever since he had left she had written each 
week the letter which he waited for Impatiently 
and which he read and re-read during the follow- 
ing days. 

This morning he seemed more cheerful. It 
was not only the joy of finding himself In the open 
air again, of having finished with the constant 
danger of being burled alive, but also because now 
the bombardment had died down the officer with 
[153] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

the mail would be able to bring to-day the letters 
which we had not received for six days. 

The child had not failed to write a single time 
on the promised date and he knew that back in 
the rear a letter from his daughter was waiting 
for him and would come to-day. This thought 
made him cheerful. 

At the relief I went with him into the front line 
trench. It was riddled with shell holes. Our 
barbed wire entanglements were almost destroyed, 
but the trench was not entirely ruined, and sand- 
bags quickly put it in good shape again. An im- 
mense heap of bricks and smoking ruins cut off 
our view in front. 

It was all that was left of a farmhouse called 
" La Maison Rose." It had been sharply disputed 
in terrible combats and had passed in succession 
fr.om the enemy into our hands and then from 
ours to the enemy, to remain finally between the 
lines. 

Our artillery was riddling this pile with shells 

to prevent the Germans fortifying it and making 

it a point of support commanding our trenches. 

But the mass of ruins stayed there and formed a 

[154] 







^ 



"WE HAVE TAKEN A PICKET POST" 

ridge which, if it was not dangerous, was at least 
annoying. 

Sub-Lieutenant Delpos demonstrated to me by 
means of a periscope the use they might make of 
that pile of stones. He was a daring but prudent 
tactician and went on the principle that everything 
ought to be used to spare the men's lives, and that 
we should not neglect to take advantage of any 
incident in the terrain. 

" Lieutenant, here 's an order." 

The battalion intelligence officer handed him a 
paper written in pencil : 

" Chief of battalion of the company of machine guns. 
A reconnaissance of aeroplanes si^jnals that the enemy are 
installing gas-throwing or liquid fire machines behind 
the pile of stones in front of your lines. Blow it up 
with several bombs on the ends to scatter it. Ask for 
volunteers." 

" See what I told you. The Germans lose no 
time in utilizing the advantages of the terrain. 
See, behind that pile of stones they are installing 
their gas machines. They think they 're sheltered, 
but nothing is from our aeroplanes. Oh, the 
aeroplanes! " 

A man from the engineers, who have received 
[155] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

a similar order, comes with the explosives. He 
looks at the emplacement through a loophole, and 
turns to us whistling and shaking his head : 

" Mince! That 's not going to be easy. One 
might be able to manage it at night, but by day 
. . . that 's going to be a real bird trap." 

"What! What! What's to stop your stick- 
ing your melinite sausage in that doghouse ? Lend 
me your peephole. I 'm going to see how it 
stands." 

It was Grizard mixing in the conversation; he 
had already taken the two bombs from the engi- 
neer's hands, which he let go with evident satis- 
faction. 

" We ought to put one in each end of the buffet. 
Don't worry. Lieutenant. That 's a fine job and 
will be well done." 

Grizard turns to his companion Marseille who 
is draining his two litre canteen without trouble. 

" Oh, there, you. This will be a fine chance 
for a ballad. We 're going to play a trick on 
our neighbor opposite." 

And then, as Marseille gave his opinion only 
by a look without letting go the neck of his 
canteen : 

[156] 



"WE HAVE TAKEN A PICKET POST" 

" Come, leave some until we get back. We '11 
be thirsty." 

The two volunteers got ready for their expedi- 
tion at once. They each took a bomb and put it 
in their jacket pockets; protected their heads by 
a shield which they pushed ahead, and climbed 
up the bank, crawled under the barbed wire, and 
disappeared in the shell holes. 

They had covered their heads with muddy can- 
vas. If they remained motionless, three yards 
away one could not tell them from the ground. 

Through periscopes we watched them advance. 
The lookouts in the enemy trench had not seen 
them yet. Not a shot. Absolute quiet. 

The " doghouse " is thirty yards from our lines. 
Sliding along carefully as they must, ten minutes 
are necessary to get there. The time will seem 
long; longer for us than for them. 

I am sure that while they are giving their whole 
attention to getting on in their adventurous spirits, 
entirely ignorant of the first feeling of fear, that 
they have no other idea in their heads than to play 
a good joke on the Boches. They are fine jokers ! 
They have never been known to draw back from 
what offers, but when their lives are at stake. . . . 
[157] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

There is still nothing. Not a shot ! 

But how could the enemy lookouts see them? 
We ourselves who know their goal, who follow 
their trail, lose sight of them momentarily. Brown 
grass and burned shrubbery covers the ground at 
that spot; they must be there inside. 

The ten minutes have gone now. Still noth- 
ing! ! ! 

Have they seen a danger we cannot see as they 
neared the goal, and have they burrowed them- 
selves in the ground? Nevertheless, their mission 
is extremely urgent, and they know it. 

Lieutenant Delpos nervously frets about and 
stamps his foot, 

" I ought to have gone myself. . . ." 

" Wait, there they are." 

Marseille and Grizard are coming back; they 
are only ten feet from the trench. 

But rash to madness, in their absolute uncon- 
sciousness of danger now that their mission is ac- 
complished, they take no thought of themselves, 
and instead of sliding under the barbed wire, as 
they went, to get into the dugout Grizard stands 
up and shouts, 

" Let the balloon go up." 
[158] 



"WE HAVE TAKEN A PICKET POST" 

At the same moment, a shower of bullets ! 

Grizard rebounded, twisted himself in a 
final contortion, and fell on his back while Mar- 
seille jumped into the trench shouting to his 
comrade, 

" Have n't you finished playing the man- 
serpent? " 

Then, when he saw that his comrade was ab- 
solutely dead, he burst out in wild anger: 

" Nom de Dieu . . . Nom de Dieu . . . de 
nom de Dieu ... If that is n't too bad. . . . 
He need n't stay there, the rascal. I 'm going to 
get him." 

The explosion came, a frightful one; the bombs 
had just exploded. 

" To the sap ... to the sap. It 's going to 
rain stones." 

The pile of stones is thrown up with tremendous 
violence. Blocks are thrown into the trench. 

The smoke blows away and behind the scat- 
tered ruins we see two machine guns in position 
with their gun crews killed beside them, and all 
their material for fortifications and gas-making 
apparatus. 

The sub-lieutenant jumps on the parapet, 
[159] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

" To the bayonet, forward, enfants, get the 
tools." 

And before the enemy had recovered from his 
stupefaction, our men are on the guns, which they 
get and bring back, in a hurry under a storm of 
bullets and grenades. 

When we are back from this sudden attack, we 
call the roll. Several fail to answer, and among 
them my friend of the day before. 

I suffer as though he had been my own brother. 

That night, when the storm of fire has ceased, 
we try to search carefully through the darkness 
of the terrain where our missing men have fallen. 
Groans tells us that they are there, but in their 
fever and pain no one answers our calls. 

At daybreak, at the risk of the bullets which 
still whistle above the trench, we are able to see 
them. 

There he was scarcely twenty yards away, his 
large eyes open and looking towards us . . . be- 
yond us . . . very far. But I know where I ! ! 

The day begins quietly. Doubtless the enemy 

is meditating a revenge for yesterday's surprise; 

not a shot on our side or on the other. It is the 

silence after the storm. I begin to hope for a 

[i6o] 



"WE HAVE TAKEN A PICKET POST" 

sudden attack which will let us go out and bring 
back our wounded. 

A man brings the letters with our morning 
coffee. There was one for him and I call and 
tell him. He answers with a sigh. I guess rather 
than hear what he wants. 

" Read me the letter, very loud so I can hear 
it." And in a voice which I force myself to make 
firm and almost joyous, while sobs choke me, I 
read this letter: 

" My darling Papa: 

" You did not expect a letter from me to-day for it 's 
not my usual day. I wanted to surprise you. To-morrow 
is mamma's birthday. With the economies I made out 
of the allowance, I had my picture taken. I put on for 
the occasion her beautiful necklace and pretty red silk 
blouse which is so becoming to me. The neighbors al- 
ready see how much I look like her. 

" And that my little souvenir might be still more 
precious, I have copied on the back of the picture the song 
which you taught me when I was very small so that I 
could sing it before mamma's portrait. 

" This song, now that you are no longer here, tells all 
that my heart would say to you on this day I long for you, 
mamma's birthday. It has become my evening prayer. 

*" Oh! si tu savais, loin de foi, 
Combien les heures sont ameres, 
Pleines d'attristantes chimeres, 
Et comme desert est le toit, 

[i6i] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

Va, j'ai beau remplir par I'etude 
Et par le travail, tons mes jours, 
C'est toi que je cherche toujours 
Tout au fond de ma solitude.' " 

Then, before I finished my reading, his voice 
continued the song of the child as he lay there on 
the point of death. In the hour of death his grave 
voice had a celestial accent; the simple song went 
up like a superhuman song, a seraphic song, above 
men, beyond all things. It penetrated to the 
bottom of our souls and probed our hearts and 
brought tears. 

The barbarians on the other side of the trench, 
themselves fathers, husbands, brothers, under- 
stand that a father is dying calling to his child; 
that a past common to us all lives again in that 
last agony. And their arms rest inert, their guns 
are lowered, and all the fierce warriors remain 
motionless, dreaming, lost in the contemplation 
of their inner dreams. Alone, their hearts beat 
and bleed. 

Suddenly someone shouts an oath from the 
German trench. A brute blasphemes, 
'' Hah dein Maul" 

[162] 



"WE HAVE TAKEN A PICKET POST" 

A shot sounds. A bullet puts an end to that 
beatific agony. 

Then, there was no need of a signal or an 
order. Tears dried spontaneously; rage bit our 
lips and lighted our eyes. 

With a bound, with a single bound, sudden, 
violent, unanimous, we jumped the parapet, and 
without the enemy's firing a shot in his utter sur- 
prise, we bounded into the German trench. Five 
minutes later, there was none left alive. 

Bowing my head over the body of my friend, 
I placed the picture of his child on his still moist 
lips. 

The Communique will say: 

" South of the Somme we took a picket post 
by surprise, captured two machine guns and con- 
siderable material for making asphyxiating gas. 
Our losses are insignificant." 

And the public will think that very simple — 
a picket post . . . two machine guns . . . and 
no losses. 



[163] 



CHAPTER XIII 

A NIGHT CONVOY 

THE colonel just telephoned the following 
order: 

" The echelons of the companies of machine 
guns will bring, to-night, thirty thousand car- 
tridges to the P. C.^ of the regiment. This order 
must be executed before daylight." 

We spent the afternoon In verifying the belts 
and making up the war train. 

Towards seven o'clock we went slowly towards 
the bridge at Frolssy, where we made a long halt 
until night fell. The sentry refused to let us take 
the towpath which would save us some eight miles. 

These were. his Instructions I 

It appears that the noises of the caissons and 
wagons might wake up the enemy, who would 
at once bombard the towpath near which were 
numerous huts of regiments who were resting. 

So we crossed the canal, and In order to get to 

* Commandant's Post. 
[164] 



A NIGHT CONVOY 

Cappy on our right, we have to go round by 
Bray-sur-Somme. 

But this road has its distractions. 

The road is absolutely torn up and it is not five 
yards wide anywhere, in fact it is an infernal 
mixture of automobiles, artillery, caissons and 
batteries. 

No one will slow up. They cross over, go 
around, hang on, shout, bellow, insult, and get 
past as best they can. Our mules are obstinate 
and stubborn and go on their way placidly in the 
midst of this uproar. 

Once we lean so far to the right that the hubs 
of the wheels on the lower side stick in the mud. 

We doubtless go ahead slowly, but we go ahead 
all the same. The drivers have to go in front of 
their beasts. It would be madness for them to 
stay on the seats of the ammunition wagons, and 
the certain ruin for man and beast, for exhausted 
by fatigue, they would fall asleep and get in the 
way of the enormous meteors which rush by with- 
out seeing anything. 

As we approach Bray, the crowding is beyond 
anything one could imagine. 

It is one compact mass of wagons, trucks, cals- 
[165] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

sons, guns, forage wagons, all entangled, mixed 
up, wedged together, trying to get through a 
street scarcely wide enough to let two wagons by 
and where ten insist on going together. 

If we mix with this crowd, we will condemn 
ourselves to several hours in one place without 
moving. Once in the crush it is impossible to get 
free and go back. 

Roudon suggests that we twist around the vil- 
lage. Our wagons have the advantage of being 
able to go anywhere. They were made expressly 
for this work and have wide wheels and no frames. 

We make a passage through a hawthorn hedge 
with a few blows of the axe and cross the fields in 
spite of the invectives of the gendarmes who per- 
sist in trying to make us circle round in regular 
order, just as though we were going around the 
Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde. 

" Here, brave gendarmes, they pass as they 
can. Guns thunder. Shells are near, and it is 
necessary to arrive at the appointed time." 

" Instructions thought out by some officer in 
the peace and quiet of a faraway office are all rot. 
Go on, you '11 find out." 

We are beyond the village an hour later and 
[i66] 




Q 
^ 



A NIGHT CONVOY 

are on the highway which leads to the bridge at 
Cappy. 

Here, things are askew again. We must cross 
to get over the bridge. We can't go around that. 
So we get into the string of wagons and follow 
their pace. They advance in skips and jumps 
. . . they go ahead ten yards, stop a quarter of 
an hour, and begin again. One would think he 
was in the line at the Opera on the day of a free 
performance. 

We stand about in one spot more than three 
hours. 

Finally, about midnight we reach the entrance 
to the bridge. 

A new delay! 

We have to get out of the way to let convoys 
past which are going in the opposite direction. 
They are ammunition trucks which make a noise 
like thunder. 

Just then, some artillerymen, who do not want to 
wait and who glory in the not altogether fortunate 
reputation of always getting by, no matter what 's 
in the way, dash on to the bridge at a gallop. 

" That 's It. Now we 're in a pickle, a mess 
. . . that 's the . . ." 

[167] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

The poles run into the carburetors, the horses 
rear and kick against the hoods with their mad- 
dened hoofs; the motors continue to run, raging 
at their impotence. 

Nevertheless a way must be cleared through the 
bridge. And in the pitch dark night that 's not easy. 

A chaffeur has the ingenious idea of lighting a 
headlight. 

Immediately, evidently judging that this light 
is without a doubt insufficient and its aid is indis- 
pensable for us, the German artillery sends us all 
the material necessary for clearing the bridge. 

It sends us shells and with absolutely no care 
at all. 

To the right, to the left, in front, and behind, 
the shots fall like a hailstorm. 

Cries, groans, oaths, and commands Impossible 
to execute ! It is Hell. 

In an excess of generosity, doubtless to aid us 
in getting out of our difficulty, a well-aimed shell 
falls on a truck, sets fire to the gasoline tank, and 
the whole thing saturated with paint and covered 
with Impervious canvas bursts Into flames. 

We can see. We can see only too well now, 
and the Boches too. 

[i68] 



A NIGHT CONVOY 

Through their glasses they can easily estimate 
what their objective is worth and see what a large 
crowd is crowding around the spectacle. And 
their bombardment doubles in intensity. 

" This is no time to stay here." 

On the trot we gain the fields and follow the 
bank lined by poplars. 

We reach the limit of the zone of fire in about 
three hundred yards. We crowd behind the trees 
and hedges to avoid the splinters which can still 
reach us. 

Suddenly, there is a terrible cry, a noise of some- 
thing falling. The bridge has fallen down. 

That is fatal. 

" We 've got to be at the P. C. at daybreak, but 
I don't see how we are going to make it." 

There is absolutely nothing to do just now; it 
would be folly to try anything, no matter what 
it was. 

No matter what the cost these convoys must 
reach the left bank, where numerous units wait 
for the ammunition which they need badly, so the 
order is given to silence the enemy's batteries 
which are bombarding us so thoroughly. 

All the guns in the valley of Froissy, including 
[169] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

the big English guns, thunder out at once in an 
astounding uproar. . . . 

The enemy returns the fire with a storm of 
shrapnel. But the trees with their thick leaves 
fortunately protect us from this. We hear splin- 
ters and bullets falling into the waters of the canal 
a few yards away. 

The fire near the bridge continues. The flames 
have reached other vehicles now and a great cloud 
goes up in the air lighting up the surrounding 
country. No one even dares to think of trying 
to put it out in the thick rain of bullet and shell. 

Roudon Is disturbed. He Is a man of duty, to 
whom an order is a sacred thing. No obstacle 
should prevent the execution of an order, so he 
proposes that we go back to Froissy and reach 
the P. C. of the regiment by way of the Cappy 
plateau. 

" That 's mad, mon vieiix. We 'd never make 
it before nine o'clock in the morning, and we 'd all 
be killed going that way in the open." 

" So much the worse. It is necessary to bring 
the ammunition. It is an order and it is urgent." 

" Wait a little while until this quiets down. 
They '11 not go on like this all night." 
[ 170] 



A NIGHT CONVOY 

" Yes, they will too ; they Ve seen the convoys 
and they '11 keep up the barrage until daylight." 

" If we could only find a boat. We could take 
the caissons to the other side. The quarry is n't 
far from there. The men could carry them." 

" What are you thinking about? Going to find 
a boat at this time of night! And with what is 
falling into the canal we 'd run some risk in 
crossing. . . ." 

Far from silencing the enemy, the fire of our 
batteries exasperates him. 

Hea\7 guns, guns on tractors doubtless, have 
been brought into play. " 280's " and " 210's " 
come at regular intervals. 

The Boches must have thought they had sur- 
prised a strategic movement much more impor- 
tant than it really was and were trying to check it. 

The place is becoming untenable. 

At the edge of the canal is a large stable for the 
canal horses, and a crowd of drivers, gunners, and 
cyclists have taken refuge there. It falls apart 
when a great shell strikes it. A terrible cry goes 
up and the building bursts into flames all over, 
like tow soaked in oil. 

[171] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

No one knows how many bodies are burned to 
cinders there. A frightful odor assails our nos- 
trils in the smoke which encircles us. 

A heavy rolling roar, boring through the night 
like the noise of an express train coming out of 
a tunnel at high speed, comes from over there, 
from the black hole where the enemy is. 

"That's a terrific fire!" 

" Look out." 

A violent puff, like a heavy blow, knocks us 
down. 

The mules rear and draw back. A wagon slides 
down the bank and falls into the water, taking its 
animal and driver with it. 

A shell has burst on the bank opposite and it 
has torn up by the roots a large poplar which falls 
across the canal. It is a miracle that it did n't 
crush a dozen of us. We run to help the driver. 
The water is shallow. He holds himself up by 
the weeds. We pull him out with the aid of sev- 
eral lengths of whip lash, but the mule and the 
wagon have rolled into the middle of the canal 
and are lost. 

The bombardment continues until dawn, but less 
violently. 

[ 172 J 



A NIGHT CONVOY 

A few shots, the longest, come near us. The 
pounding continues on the site of the bridge, ob- 
stinately and stubbornly. 

We are still there at the first rays of dawn. 

" This is exasperating. We can never get these 
munitions to the P. C. before daylight." 

" Say, Roudon, we have a bridge right in front 
of us. It will do." 

And indeed the large poplar might let us get 
across the canal. 

We try it. 

We leave one man to guard the five wagons, 
and the rest detach the caissons from their sup- 
ports, hang them on our shoulders, and one after 
another we try the chance bridge which bends a 
little but does not break. 

Less than fifteen minutes later all the munitions 
are together on the opposite bank. 

We reached the P. C. at five o'clock, ex- 
hausted without a doubt, but the order has been 
executed. 

When the artillery officer saw us arriving, he 
started shouting, 

" What do you want me to do with that? " 
[173] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

Roudon repeated the order he had received the 
day before. 

" So you have n't received the cancellation of 
the order? You always ought to wait for that. 
We were relieved last night. Take that stuff back 
where you got It from." 

We carried the caissons back to our wagons by 
the same way, by the same bridge. 

Captain D . . . was coming along the tow- 
path and saw us arrive. 

Roudon was furious as he told him about our 
useless adventure which might have cost us so 
dear. 

He listened, laughed, then, coldly: 

" Bah ! that will do the mules good. They '11 
get used to marching at night. . . ." 



[174] 



F 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE SONGS OF THE HOMELAND 

ONTAINE-LES-CAPPY is some hundred 
yards from the lines. 

It is a reserve position to which the company 
was sent the day before in expectation of an at- 
tack which may come at any moment. 

It is raining as it has n't stopped raining for 
weeks. We had floundered in the mud for five 
hours and were splashed by an endless string of 
convoys to get here from Villers where the regi- 
ment had scarcely begun a few short days of rest. 

The men were tired out and threw themselves 
on the filthy straw. They have slept nearly all 
day, and this evening in groups they try their 
hardest to organize a respectable meal from the 
means at their disposal. The wine flows from full 
canteens, and flasks of cheap brandy come out of 
the packs. 

The section leaders advise them to save some 
of their provisions for the next day. 
[175] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

"To-morrow I What do you think? To- 
morrow we '11 lunch with the Boches. You I I '11 
pay you in sauerkraut." 

Conversation gradually grew less amid the fall- 
ing darkness and the smoke of pipes. 

The silence became profound. 

The men are not sleeping. They think and re- 
member. Sadness and worry hover about. . . . 

Far away, hesitating, a voice sings a prelude. 
But that voice is so pure and clear that it seems 
enormous, startling, vibrating in the dull numbness 
of men and things. 

Vigne is humming a song of Provence, a hymn 
to the sun, which from the banks of the Durance 
to the shores of the Latin sea, from the blue hills 
of the Alps to the golden flowers of Vacares, the 
youths and maidens of Avignon, Aries, and Mail- 
lamne sing as they return to the hospitable farm 
from their labors, their hands entwined for the 
farandole, with eyes full of smiles and love for 
the bright sun which makes them live and love. 

Grand souleu de la Provenqo 
Gai coumpaire doii ?nistrau 
Tu qu'escoules la Durengo 
Comme un flot de vin de Crau, 

[176] 



THE SONGS OF THE HOMELAND 

Fai lust toun blound caleu! 
Coucho Voumbro emai li fleii! 

Leu! leu! leu! 
Fai te veire, beu souleu! 

Vigne was sitting in a corner, elbows on his 
knees, chin between his hands, his face lifted, and 
singing unconsciously, his eyes on the distance. 

A candle stuck in the neck of a bottle throws a 
flickering light on the damp ground of the cellar, 
and scarcely separates his outlines from the 
darkness. 

Gradually one follows in, one after another, 
naturally, and they all begin to sing. 

And music and rhythm form so large a part of 
their natures that they form a wonderful choir 
where the thirds and minors take form instinc- 
tively without an effort, and where the dream of 
their homeland marks the time. 

And they sing from their souls, and through it 
all is the sun of their beautiful South, the poetry 
of their dawns, the charm of their twilights, the 
mystic gleams of the olives, the flight of the red 
flamingoes on the pools, the coming down of the 
shepherds from the perfumed hills, the mad career 
of the bulls in clouds of dust on the white roads 
of Camargue, the gold of the mimosas, the red of 
[177] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

the wild popples, the blue sky, the blue sea, the 
sun. . . . 

Fai lusi ... 
Fat lusi toun blound caleu. 

These soft voices, monotonous, hesitating a 
moment ago, which seemed scarcely awake, now 
sound out, vibrant, dashing, sonorous. 

They are no longer uprooted exiles who are 
stirred; it is a force, a crowd, a people whom the 
song of their birthplace awakes, draws together, 
cheers. It is Provence herself that sings. 

Outside, the cannon roar and the shells fall like 
hail around the cantonment. Great shells tear 
up the ground with their gigantic blows. 

War, horrors, blood, ruins, fear, the attack 
which is near at hand, death perhaps, all that 
exists no longer for them. It is all of no conse- 
quence to them; the air of their natal song trans- 
ports them. 

These men shut up in dark cellars, in dugouts, 
shaken by the terrific hammering of shells, are 
transported by their dream to the bright sunshine, 
the bright and cheerful atmosphere of their south- 
ern plains. They sing, and at once they are living 
again the life of their homeland. 
[178] 



THE SONGS OF THE HOMELAND 

Their " little " country dominates them and 
makes them valiant and strong in the midst of the 
sorrows all about to attack and stand up in defense 
of the Great I . . . 

I go out with my nerves on edge and my eyes 
full of tears before the unearthly beauty of the 
scene. 

Streaks of light from the stuffed airholes alone 
let me realize that men in large numbers wait 
there underground for a signal to dash into the 
fiery furnace. . . , 

I walk to the end of the village to the officers' 
quarters to calm my nerves. 

Voices still rise in song on both sides of the 
road. There, under my feet in a ruin — so mar- 
tyred that one might think it was an acropolis 
raising prayers of stone to heaven — a chorus of 
warm voices scans the joyous song, 

Que cantes, que recantes 
Cantes pas per iev, 
Cantes per ma mia 
Qu'es aupres de iev. 

Here are the lads of Languedoc, Nimes, Mont- 

pellier, the vine growers of the plains, the carters 

of Aiguesmortes, the harvesters of Toulouse 

[ 179] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

all carried away by the evocation of their 
homeland. 

Oh I the beautiful song I How it puts heart 
into one; more beautiful than the most martial 
hymn composed in the harsh technique of the ink 
pots. 

It is the living expression, simple, spontaneous, 
natural, of the people, the family and the soil. It 
carries in it the remembrances of happy childhood, 
of loves bathed in sunshine, the radiant nuptials 
in the mystery of light and flowers. It speaks of 
the loved pastures, the paternal roof, the farm, 
the herds, the vines . . . and that is the 
Patrie. 

Oh! the beautiful song! It dissipates dark 
thoughts, fears, uncertainties; It makes lovers 
and heroes, electrifies them, and Increases their 
strength a hundred fold. They are the lads of 
Provence and Languedoc who spread through the 
world the triumphal " Marseillaise." They are 
the same lads who despite the mud and the dark 
night breathe In their memory and in the song the 
re-vivlfying breath of their " little " country, who 
in pursuit of the routed enemy make the " Mar- 
seillaise " victorious again, victorious alway. 
[i8o] 



THE SONGS OF THE HOMELAND 

At the end of the village in a house at the side 
of the road to Chuignolles, a feeble light filters 
through the canvas which takes the place of 
shutters. 

The officers are quartered here. Lieutenant 
Casanova is stretched out on a mattress on 
the ground, smoking and dreaming over his 
eternal cigarette. Lieutenant Delpos leaning 
on a box which serves him for a table, is read- 
ing, by the light of a lantern, an illustrated 
novel. 

I look over his shoulder. They are rather 
sprightly, suggestive illustrations, reinforced with 
a vengeance by the fervid imagination and second- 
hand talent of the readers who have handed it 
around. 

The wind and rain rage outside the window. 
Poor weather for an attack. 

" I 'm sure that we 've come here for nothing." 

" Oh, that can be launched at any time." 

" I should be much surprised if it came this 
evening." 

" Listen." 

A heavy, faraway, continuous rumble, like the 
beating of a drum, is heard just then. 
[i8ij 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

The sound seems to come from the direction of 
Lihons and to get nearer by degrees. 

In the midst of the fusillade we hear distinctly 
the regular crackle of the machine guns. 

Suddenly, a terrific fire breaks out opposite us. 
D . . . company, which we are to support, must 
have gone into action. 

" That 's getting close." 

We go out. The road forms a sort of embank- 
ment at this spot, which is forbidden during the 
daytime, and from which we look toward the 
lines. 

A great light has risen. More and more fre- 
quent bursts of shrapnel at this distance have the 
effect of immense red Venetian lanterns, tossed 
about by the wind in the dark night. 

Rockets go up suddenly on our right. 

That is a call for the artillery. The expected 
attack is probably taking place over there. We 
have been placed in reserve for fear that the at- 
tack might widen out on the sector, but it is prob- 
able that we shall not have to intervene. 

" It looks as though it were quieting down 
there in front." 

"Hum! You '11 see." 

[182] 



THE SONGS OF THE HOMELAND 

Lieutenant Casanova has had great experience 
in battles, and he is n't taken by surprise by appar- 
ent lulls. On the contrary. Silence is what he 
dreads most. 

" You '11 see." 

And as a matter of fact we did n't have long to 
wait. ... A tornado of shells falls between the 
lines and our cantonment. This is immediately 
followed by another, then still another, all in a 
couple of minutes. 

It is a barrage of " 77's," effected by a battery 
which has taken us in its fire. 

" I certainly think that something is going to 
happen." 

" Go and tell the section leaders to get their 
men together and to have them ready." 

I go into the night in search of the canton- 
ment. 

All the men are awake. The corporals and 
sergeants have foreseen the order and everyone is 
waiting. 

The shells and the fire of our rifles and our 
machine guns is only one frightful uproar in which 
all noises are confounded. 

As I return toward the officers badly aimed 
[183] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

spent machine-gun bullets whistle in the trees 
above. 

" All we can do is to wait. If they need us, 
they '11 call us." 

As he said this the ever-imperturbable Lieuten- 
ant Casanova went back into his quarters and we 
followed him. 

" I suggest poker," said Delpos. " I '11 go and 
find the cards." 

" Three-handed poker is too risky." 

" Well, here 's a fourth." 

Someone raised the canvas which served as a 
door. 

It 's an intelligence officer from the colonel. 

" Lieutenant, D . . . company is running out 
of munitions. Pass yours to them and send back 
for new supplies. Here 's the order." 

The lieutenant read the order and said: 

" All right. It will be done." 

Hardly twenty minutes later, ten men from 
each section, each carrying four caissons, were 
assembled on the way out of the village. 

D . . . company's position, which we marked 
yesterday, is about six hundred yards away and 
some yards beyond the ridge of the plateau be- 
[184] 



THE SONGS OF THE HOMELAND 

tween the main road from Amiens and the Somme. 
There 's little chance of losing the way, for it is 
downhill. We might pass through the fields but 
thirty yards before reaching the trench the ground 
is literally swept with shells. It is impossible to 
use the communication trench. The enemy ar- 
tillery has located it mathematically and has com- 
pletely destroyed it. The shells fall there without 
a let-up. The least dangerous passage is the 
unprotected ground. 

Stretched out in the mud, the head of one 
against the heels of the other, our men form an 
endless chain on the terrain which extends from 
the sheltered ridge to the fire trench. They pass 
along the caissons by a simple movement of the 
arms, without raising their bodies or their heads. 

In the same way and by the same means, crawl- 
ing along, I reach the trenches in my turn and 
fall in. 

Captain D ... is there, striding from one gun 
to another, encouraging his men and hurrying 
their fire. 

" I was sure that I was going to run out of am- 
munition. They were already within one hundred 
and fifty yards." 

[185] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

" We Ve passed you one hundred and sixty 
caissons. We 've sent men for more and they '11 
be here in half an hour." 

" We don't need any more. It 's all over. 
Their attempt is broken. By daylight we '11 see 
more than two hundred bodies in front of our 
barbed wire. You can go. I thank you. Take 
my regards and thanks to Lieutenant Casanova." 

The firing continued all night, sometimes inter- 
mittently, sometimes in violent salvos, so that one 
might imagine that the enemy was making another 
attack. 

At dawn we only heard rare, isolated detona- 
tions. 

Our men returned to the cantonment uninjured. 
There were a few scratches and slight wounds in 
the hands, but there was no discharge in sight. 

Some of them had had narrow escapes. Bullets 
had ricochetted and gone through the steel hel- 
mets. Linari's was perforated with a round, well- 
defined hole. The bullet had gone out close to 
the ear. 

They were exhausted by lack of sleep, and after 
eating a meal hastily thrown together from the 
[i86] 



THE SONGS OF THE HOMELAND 

things at hand, they started for their underground 

shelters. 

Just then the sun rose shining brightly. 

In the sky, washed by weeks of rain, it was so 

clear and smiling with warmth that one would 

have thought it was a sunrise in the South. 
" Say, this morning that 's the sun of the 

South!" 

" What 's it doing here ? It 's made a mistake." 
" Beautiful sun I Indeed, there 's only you." 
And in the pure morning air, these peasants of 

Provence saluted the rising sun by shouting the 

joyous song which, a few hours before, had 

brightened their night. 

Gran souleu de la Prouvenqo 
Fai lusi toun blound caleu. 

The attack was heavy; it is over. They have 
come back from it. They are still alive. We must 
begin all over again, to-night, perhaps; possibly 
this evening; perhaps in an hour. Death lurks 
everywhere. What difference does it make? 
This morning the sun rose radiantly. They sing ! 



[187] 



CHAPTER XV 

A WATER PATROL 

FOR several days the Germans had been at 
work making changes opposite our salient 
on the banks of the Somme. Probably it was a 
machine-gun emplacement to prevent any attempt 
at attack from that side. But as there must be 
no obstacle in the way of our next advance, the 
major, after talking with the colonel, sent for 
Lieutenant Delpos, who was in charge of the 
section in that sector and asked him what he 
thought of the work. 

" It 's hard to say," he answered. " If they 've 
brought two or three machine guns it will be 
humanly impossible even to try to advance. It 
all depends on the importance of the work. We 
can't tell from here what it is." 

" Our aeroplane observations and photographs 
don't tell us anything," said the major. " The 
view is partly cut off by the tops of the trees along 
the river." 

[i88] 



A WATER PATROL 

" Aeroplane observations are n't everything," 
answered Delpos. 

*' But I can't send a patrol over such unpro- 
tected ground. It would be utterly wiped out 
before It discovered anything." 

" Will you give me an order," asked Delpos, 
" to make a reconnaissance In whatever way I 
think best? In twenty-four hours, at the latest, 
I think I can bring you the exact details." 

" Go ahead. Do your best. I '11 send you a 
written order to cover it." 

When he got back to his post, Lieutenant Del- 
pos examined the strip of terrain as thoroughly as 
he could by peering over the top of the parapet, 
and then asked for the photographs the aero- 
planes had taken. Finally, he studied the map 
of the country which the enemy occupied opposite 
us. Then, he went to Eclusier, borrowed a boat, 
and stayed out in the current calculating its direc- 
tion by bunches of grass pulled from the banks. 

He came back to the company towards noon 
and sent me to the echelon for Gondran, whom 
I brought back about three o'clock. At seven 
Delpos had his plans made. He went to the 
major, who received him at once, and explained 
[189] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

the project he wanted to put Into execution that 
evening. 

Delpos asked him, as it would probably be 
useful in distracting attention, to have the sections 
at the extreme north of the sector fire several 
heavy volleys between eleven o'clock and mid- 
night. 

When this was arranged, everything was ready 
for his departure and he invited me to dinner as 
he ordinarily did. His dinners were always good 
and there was excellent wine which his servant 
had managed to find in the ruins of Harbonniere 
and Villers. 

As he was lighting his cigar after the dessert, 
he said: 

" We 're going to pay a call on the Boches this 
evening. The chances of staying there are about 
even, but, in any case, even if we remain, the per- 
formance won't be uninteresting. It will be as 
good as a first night at the ' Grand-Gulgnol! ' 
Take your revolver, some grenades and come 
along." 

I would have been highly unappreciative to 
have refused such a kind invitation, although ad- 
venture, to say nothing of such a mad adventure, 
[ 190] 



A WATER PATROL 

has never been to my taste. But Lieutenant Del- 
pos had the reputation of always getting out, so 
why should n't he get out this time. 

Gondran was waiting for us a little ways from 
Eclusier, in a small creek, hidden under the trees. 

Gondran and his boat ! 

It was one of those flat-bottomed, square-ended 
boats that fishermen use to cross marshes where 
the water is shallow. He had covered it with a 
camouflage of grass, weeds, and moss so that even 
close to it was impossible to tell it from one of the 
thousand little islands which obstruct the Somme 
at this point. 

We slipped into the boat and stretched out at 
once — it would n't have held us in any other 
way — and waited for total darkness. When it 
came, Gondran began to push the boat ahead. 
He was used to fishing for eels with a spear in the 
clear waters of the canals and knew how to move 
silently, without a splash, almost without making 
a ripple on the surface of the water. If our 
course had not been against the current, we might 
have been mistaken for a pile of drifting grass. 

Flat on his stomach in the stern with both arms 
in the water up to his elbows and a stick of wood 
[191] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

In each hand, slowly and silently he paddled like 
a duck. 

The officer and I were both flat also, in the bow, 
and we peered into the darkness. I held a string 
in one hand, and the other end was tied around 
Gondran's arm. We had arranged that one pull 
meant to stop and stay where we were; two to go 
back. 

We went on without accident for nearly two 
hours. Suddenly, a bump, a hard jolt, fortunately 
without any noise besides the rustling of the 
weeds. The night was so thick that it was im- 
possible to tell what the obstacle was, whether it 
was the bank or an island. We tried in vain to 
see through the fathomless darkness. We ven- 
tured to feel about with our hands, and, in the 
middle of the weeds and reeds, I was gripped by 
something. I pulled back my arm, in a hurry, to 
get away. A sharp point cut the skin, then an- 
other, and I felt a scratch from my elbow to my 
fist. 

I whispered in Delpos's ear, " Barbed wire." 

A network of barbed wire barred the river 
here. The Germans had foreseen the possibilities 
of an approach and had taken precautions to pre- 
[ 192] 



A WATER PATROL 

vent it. Was the network large, or was there 
only a single barrier, that was the question. Or, 
should we go back? In any case there was no use 
in re-appearing before we were expected, for we 
had reached their lines. 

Since the work under suspicion was a little In 
advance of their first trench, we must be nearly 
even with it. We had brought wire cutters, but 
what was the use of cutting the first net, if we 
were to find another beyond it, and then another, 
and so on for fifty or a hundred yards perhaps. 

The enemy is meticulous in his defenses and 
spares no means of protecting himself. It was 
also a question whether we were in the middle 
of the river or near the bank. By shoving his 
paddle down at arm's length Gondran touched 
bottom. So we were going to reach the bank, but 
first we must prepare for our retreat. Using the 
barbed wire as a guide, we put the boat out into the 
middle of the river, but not in the strength of the 
current, and then on a stick we had brought along 
set up a dummy dressed in the uniform of one of 
the Colonials. Then we went back to the bank. 

Here was the most ticklish and dangerous mo- 
ment of our mission. What, we asked ourselves, 
[ 193 ] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

was the shape of the bank and would we find a 
sentinel ? We brought the boat as near the shore 
as possible and in as far as we could. By feeling 
to the right we could touch solid ground. The 
time had come! . . . We glided from the boat 
like snakes and once on land remained motionless, 
holding our breaths. It was impossible to see 
anything a yard off; there was no noise except the 
far-off rumbling of the guns in the English sector. 
We went ahead. . . . The heavy socks we had 
drawn over our boots deadened our steps. The 
damp grass bent but did not crackle. 

" Conrad! Come here. It is time." 

"What time?" 

" Nearly midnight." 

" Good." 

" The lieutenant is n't here." 

"No?" 

" He is with the major and will come back." 

" Come along." 

" But there 's no one here." 

" What of it? Come along." 

This conversation in German stopped us short. 
The voices seemed to come from the ground two 
steps in front of us. Doubtless there was a sap 
[ 194] 



A WATER PATROL 

there. . . . We heard steps getting farther away. 
I grabbed the officer and making a megaphone of 
my hands whispered in his ear what I had just 
understood from their conversation. In the same 
way, he responded: 

" Inviting you was an inspiration. Since 
they 've gone, we can get in there." 

A few steps beyond in the open ground a feeble 
Hght filtered through sacks hung as shutters. It 
was the sap! . . . We stretched out on the 
ground and tried to see inside. There was no one 
standing, but if anyone was left he must be asleep, 
and we could surprise him, . . . We jumped in. 
Not a soul. Without a doubt it was a post mo- 
mentarily empty during a relief. On some over- 
turned chairs there was a platter with a candle on 
it and we put it out. We examined the place with 
our flashlight. A communication trench opened 
into the post and we started down. 

No matter where it led or whether we could 
retrace our steps or not, the die was cast. The 
number of chances of our getting back alive which 
Delpos had said were even seemed to me to have 
grown beautifully less. The trench stopped short 
within ten yards. Ahead, to the right, to the left, 
[195] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

we stuck our noses into the solid wall. But the 
men had got out someway. . . . 

Delpos risked another flash of his light — 
the way out was over our heads. It was a shaft 
with a ladder leading up it. We heard some- 
one talking abov^e. The relief was coming 
down. . . . 

Just then the noise of firing came from our own 
lines. The sections were firing as had been ar- 
ranged. This wise precaution served beyond our 
utmost expectations, for above us began at once 
the rapid tac-tac of the machine guns and we 
heard commands. 

So the shaft led into the machine-gun emplace- 
ment. That was just what we wanted to know; 
our reconnaissance was at an end. 

Delpos drove a cheddite bomb into the wall 
beneath the ladder, and I tied a slow fuse to it. 
We jumped towards the river. I lighted the 
fuse as I jumped from the sap, just as an immense 
body appeared in the opening and blocked the 
way. 

" Wer da? " 

'"JVer da?' you'll find out who is there," 
Delpos muttered, and with a blow full on the 
[196] 



A WATER PATROL 

chest, while I threw myself on his legs, we got 
the colossus down, as he shouted for help. 

But the firing drowned his cries. 

Then, to deprive him of all interest in keep- 
ing on, I applied my revolver to his forehead, 
and Delpos kicked him under the chin. We left 
him senseless and voiceless for at least a quarter 
of an hour. 

We jumped into our boat and slid under the 
camouflage. Whether we had made too much 
noise or a sentinel had heard us, I don't know, 
but we were hardly there, and were just pushing 
off, when shots came in our direction, star shells 
lighted the river, and men ran up and down the 
bank. 

We heard them cry, " There he is . . . 
there. . . ." They had seen our dummy in the 
middle of the river and were firing at him with 
rifles and bombarding him with grenades. We 
did not move. By stretching out an arm we could 
almost have touched the legs of the men who came 
down to the water's edge to hurl their grenades. 
None of them dreamed we were so near. 

The alarm lasted about twenty seconds; it 
seemed like a century. 

[ 197] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

We knew that the blockhouse was going to 
blow up and we wanted to be far away for the 
debris were likely to reach us and crush us. 

Suddenly, terribly, came the explosion. 

It was fortunate for us that the alarm had 
held us close to the bank. Whole blocks of 
granite were hurled into the middle of the river 
just where we would have been. We were too 
near and too low and everything went over us. 

The violence of the waves tore us from the 
bank and drove us into the strength of the cur- 
rent, and we were n't fired on once. The whole 
garrison had been blown up. 

At daybreak, three o'clock in the morning, 
Lieutenant Delpos woke up the major. 

" Major," he said, " it was a machine-gun em- 
placement. But it is no more. If you will allow 
me, I 'm going to bed. I could n't get any sleep 
over there; there was too much noise. 



[198] 



CHAPTER XVI 

A COMMANDER 

AT the beginning of June, the colonel's re- 
^ port informed us that the major of Battal- 
ion C .. . had been assigned to the . . . first 
Colonials. 

The battalion commandant's post was next to 
ours on the ridge of the quarry. 

Since the departure of Major L ... the cap- 
tain adjutant-major, who was assuming the com- 
mand in the interim, was quartered there. He 
was devoting himself to his ablutions in the open 
place in front of his dugout and at the same time 
telling Lieutenants C . . . and D . . ., his 
neighbors, an uproarious adventure of his last 
leave, when a man, tall and spare, with hollowed 
cheeks, sunburned skin, eyes deep and shining, 
modestly dressed, — a mechanic's blue trousers, 
badly fitting and muddy boots, regulation trooper's 
jacket, with no mark to show his rank, — came 
out of the sort of tunnel in which the La Vache 
[ 199] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

trench ended, and stopped as if undecided, in 
front of our dugouts. 

There was a mounted scout there who was occu- 
pying himself in cutting out a ring, and he asked 
him, 

" The post of the major of the . . . first 
battalion? " 

Without stopping his work, the man indicated 
our group with his hand. He advanced shyly. 

"The . . . first battalion?" 

" This is it," said the adjutant-major, drawing 
his wet head from the canvas bucket in which he 
was plunging. 

"I am Major C . . ." 

" Oh, Major, I beg your pardon. I did n't 
know . . ." mopping his face rapidly, and put- 
ting on his tunic which his orderly handed to him. 

Without a word, the unperturbed figure, 
Major C . . ., looked off into the distance, be- 
yond material things, waited for him to finish 
his toilet, and then entered into the P. C. to take 
possession of his new post. 

None of us who lived constantly in his imme- 
date neighborhood ever knew any other expres- 
[ 200 ] 



A COMMANDER 

sion on his firm, cold, almost mystical face. His 
hair was poorly cut, his beard was thin and long, 
and his voice was gentle, very gentle, so gentle 
that one might call it a sad sing-song. All in all 
he had none of the outward appearance of the 
conventional commander. 

Nevertheless he was one of the best. 

Good reputations, they say, take longest to 
establish. Only legends come to life spontane- 
ously. His kindliness and honesty must have be- 
longed to the legends, because in less than a week 
there was not a single man in the battalion who 
did not speak of him with respect and admiration. 

" He 's a chic type," they said. 

" He 's a man." 

And the men, who love to see their commander 
among them, living their life, sharing their labors 
and fatigue, experiencing the same trials, knew at 
once that he did not belong to that distant and 
unknown hierarchy which transmits its orders 
from an ivory throne. 

From the day he took over his command, he 
wanted to see everything for himself and all the 
positions in the sector. 

[201 ] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

With his knotty baton in his hand, he went 
through all the communication trenches, the first- 
line trenches, into the saps, verified the riflemen's 
posts, and, it was said, spent nights in the picket 
posts. 

When the battalion relieved the 38th at Me- 
haricourt, the commandant's post which was as- 
signed to the major was in an immense house in 
the middle of a park which was not much 
destroyed. 

Since the day before, however, the artillery had 
established an observation tower in a poplar and 
had foreseen that it would hardly be prudent to 
occupy the house. It would be shelled if the bat- 
tery were spotted. 

The commander learned this, and without say- 
ing a word established his things all the same 
in the salon which he used for an office and 
bedroom. 

The first night and the next morning passed 
without incident — not a single shot from the 
Boche lines. Aeroplanes flew over at daybreak. 

He had invited to lunch, as was his custom, 
when we were in cantonment, the doctor, his cap- 
[ 202 ] 



A COMMANDER 

tain adjutant-major, and the engineer officer In 
charge of the sector. 

My relations with him dated back before the 
war, so I was with him often, and he frequently- 
kept me at the table with his guests. I was there 
that day. 

We had scarcely sat down when they began to 
talk of Portugal's entrance Into the war. The en- 
gineer was the manager of a political paper and 
his remarks were so keen that we were all Inter- 
ested, and even the servants stopped to listen. 

Just then a shell, the first In two days, burst 
somewhere in the neighborhood. The glasses 
rattled on the table; we could hear things falling, 
and people running by in the street. 

The conversation stopped. 

The major, who had been as silent as usual 
during the meal, spoke up in his quiet voice: 

" They say that their artillery Is excellent . . . 
it comes from Creusit " — and he engaged the 
journalist in a historical discussion about the arma- 
ment and strength of Portugal, which showed a 
deep knowledge of the country, in spite of its un- 
expected and recent entrance into the ranks of the 
Allies. 

[ 203 ] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

The journalist seemed to take a lively interest 
in this conversation which he had started, but he 
instinctively turned his eyes to the windows every 
time a shell burst, for now explosions far and 
near, the screeching of shells and the falling of 
walls indicated clearly that we were the center 
of a bombardment. 

At each explosion the doctor looked at the 
adjutant-major, who kept on eating quietly, as if 
to say, " Are you going to stay here much 
longer? " 

The explosions came nearer and all around us. 
We could see plainly the bits of steel which 
whistled by the windows, grazing the walls which 
they destroyed. We could hear the plaster falling 
down the staircase. 

As the servant brought the desserts — a Cam- 
embert, crackers, fruit, and white wine — a vio- 
lent explosion of a new arrival nearby tore the 
window, stuffed with paper, from its hinges and 
the draught of air half overturned the orderly 
who let the platter fall on the table, to the great 
damage of the tablecloth where the white wine 
ran out. . . . 

" Bigre! " said the major. 
[204] 



A COMMANDER 

" I think it 's time to get into the cellar." 

The engineer was only waiting for this invita- 
tion to stop the conversation and was half out of 
his chair when the major took his arm and sat 
him down again. 

" In short, Portugal owed its title of Historical 
Conquistador to its navy." 

And he began to relate the records of that 
valorous nation on the sea from the time these 
people on the Tagus served in the Carthaginian 
triremes to Vasco da Gama, Magellan, Cabral, 
Bartholomew Diaz. Never was conversation 
more polished, imaginative, and undisturbed. 

A terrific explosion shook the house ; part of the 
roof rolled down the staircase; the cook and the 
waiter jumped into the hall. 

"Well, what is it?" 

" Major, it fell in the garden, ten feet from the 
kitchen." 

" The gentlemen are waiting for their coffee. 
Bring it." 

The doctor could stand no more, alleged that 
perhaps there were wounded waiting for him at 
the dressing station, and asked permission to 
withdraw. 

[205 ] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

The servants brought in the boiling coffee in a 
hurry, and he got up to go, as the commander 
said: 

" We '11 go along with you. We '11 see whether 
the shells have done much damage in the canton- 
ment." 

" But, Commander, do you think it 's prudent 
to venture out in the streets just now? " 

" It 's my opinion, gentlemen, that the Ger- 
mans, who obviously wanted to furnish the music 
for our meal, should know that we 've finished " 
— and he lighted his cigar and went out on the 
steps. 

The neighborhood was badly shattered indeed. 
Large holes blocked the street; the artillery ob- 
servatory had been hit by a well-aimed shell, had 
fallen on a shed and crushed it. Immense craters 
had appeared here and there in the garden and 
the whole front of the house was splashed with 
steel. 

The enemy's fire was letting up; it had almost 
ceased. 

Heads now appeared at the air-holes of the 
cellars trying to see what had happened. 

We followed the commander along the main 
[206] 



A COMMANDER 

street which led to the dressing post. An aero- 
plane in the azure sky, a small silver bird shining 
in the sun, went on its giddy way. 

With our noses in the air, we watched It pass. 
The whistle of a shell approached with a noise 
like a panting locomotive. 

" There 's the last." 

A frightful crash, a cloud of greenish smoke, 
bricks and timbers fall . . . cries . . . 

The villa we had just left re-appeared with a 
large yawning hole, its walls burning and fallen 
apart. The last shell had fallen Into the dining 
room! 

His courage and coolness were not calculated 
or put on; they were not an effort of the will. 
They were natural. 

He was a fatalist like all who have lived long 
in Eastern countries. What he had above all was 
a powerful control of himself and a sovereign 
contempt for danger. 

He had an absolutely definite conviction that 
he would be killed In the next attack. He had 
so thoroughly accustomed himself to the idea 
that as a result he had made all arrangements 
and now awaited the hour, in the meanwhile 
[207 ] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

doing his duty as a commander honorably and 
simply. 

One evening I went to greet him at his canton- 
ment at Froissy — he was going on leave the next 
day — I asked him, among other things, if it 
would be agreeable to him, if I used his hoises 
while he was gone. 

" My horses? I have no further use for them. 
They can't follow me through the trenches and 
barbed wire — to the front; coming back . . . 
they '11 bring me in a canvas. They '11 serve my 
successor." 

It would have been perfectly useless to protest. 

After a moment of silence when he seemed to 
be keenly interested in the ripples of the water in 
the canal, he went on: 

" I 'm going on leave to-morrow, to bid good-by 
to mine. That will be the last. What are you 
doing this evening? " 

" Nothing, Commander." 

" Do you want to make a tour of the sector 
with me? " 

" At your orders. Commander." 

By the last red rays of the sun setting on the 
heights to the north of the Somme, we reached the 
[208] 



A COMMANDER 

lines through the open path which passed by the 
camp kitchens and reached the hill of the Chateau 
de Cappy. 

Twilight passed, followed by the most varied 
colors. 

The red sun as it plunged behind the black 
poplars on the wide horizon flooded the sky with 
a great yellow light, fiery, burning yellow, like 
the gold of flames which gradually grew thin and 
pale, and became light like an immense head of 
hair. 

A little later mauve and violet precursors of 
approaching clouds passed slowly from pale to 
dark to end in night. 

The clear moon came up above the plateau of 
the road from Amiens. We walked on, one be- 
hind the other, in silence. 

He stopped to look at the sky and I heard him 
murmur, " How beautiful it is." 

This twilight must have recalled to him the 
skies of the Orient. 

" Yes, the sunsets on the sea, in the Indies, in 
the Red Sea. I am homesick for the light and the 
sea. The light, the sea, the woman; the greatest 
joys, the greatest sorrows! ! !" 
[209] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

He fell into his revery again. 

We reached the orchard above the great 
quarry, and an outlying picket warned us that 
the path was dangerous. 

The commander did not even hear him and 
continued to walk on the road from Herbecourt, 
bordered by apple trees in blossom. 

"Ta-co!" 

A German bullet tore through the night, and a 
broken branch with its white petals fell at our 
feet. 

He picked it up and looked at it a long time; 
plucked a blossom and put it in his pocket, 

" Even the flowers! " 

He said nothing more that evening. We went 
through the front lines of the sector until late at 
night, stopping at the loopholes to observe the 
enemy's position and questioning the sentries. 

We got back to Froissy at three o'clock in the 
morning, and at six he went to the station at 
Guillaucourt and left on his leave. 

When he got back, the attack, they said, was 
near; they were preparing for it seriously. He 
did not give up attending to the slightest details 
[210] 



A COMMANDER 

of the battalion. He showed a paternal Interest 
in his men, knew the men of all ranks by their 
names, and stopped those he met and talked to 
them familiarly. 

The battalion followed the deep path to the 
entrance of the " 120 long" to get back to Its 
positions. A wooden bridge had been constructed 
here by the artillery to get their guns across. This 
was useless now and made the road so narrow that 
the column had to dress back and form by twos. 
This long manoeuvre compelled the men to mark 
time in one spot. 

There is nothing especially disagreeable about 
marking time for we have seen many other stops 
for less reasons, but this evening the Boche artil- 
lery had information of the arrival of the attacking 
regiment in the lines and was shelling heavily all 
possible ways of access. 

A single " 77 " falling into this crowd of men 
would make a hecatomb. 

The commander was marching at the head of 
the column followed by the intelligence officers of 
the companies. 

He stopped a moment In front of the bridge 
encircled by the explosions of the shells. 
[211] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

" If a shell would only destroy It! " 

But as if for spite, they fell all around and 
missed it. 

" It must be destroyed." 

There was nothing formal about this order, 
and the task was n't easy. 

He took off his belts, gave his jacket to a man, 
and with his chest bare the commander stood up 
on the bridge, propped himself on the timbers of 
the floor, and began to tear them up. 

Ten men imitated him of their own accord. 
They finished tearing it down amidst a storm of 
shells which raged about, and in the black smoke 
of the explosions in which they disappeared for 
minutes at a time. 

In a quarter of an hour the way was clear; all 
that was left was the two laterals which were 
planted in the walls of the covered path. 

The battalion was engulfed in the whirlpool 
and passed without loss. 

The commander stood on the pile of materials 
and watched the men file past. He was the last 
one over. 

When we reached the line, he began to walk up 
and down incessantly. 

[212] 



A COMMANDER 

The fire of our batteries had been uninterrupted 
for three days ; and this with the constant whizzing 
of shells as they passed over our heads put our 
nerves almost as much on edge as the strain of the 
approaching attack. 

Towards eleven o'clock one night there was an 
intense calm all of a sudden. 

The firing ceased along the whole line — on 
both sides. All was silence, but It was the silence 
which precedes the storm, the stupor of nature 
after the flash and before the thunder. 

The men burrowed in the saps and fell asleep. 
The sentries who had not closed an eye for forty- 
eight hours continued to fight against sleep. 

It was almost impossible to recognize the com- 
mander in his bizarre garb, wrapped in a canvas 
instead of a waterproof, his steel helmet covered 
with mud, as he wandered up and down the 
trenches, with a kind word of encouragement for 
each one. 

In the " Ser^'ian " trench there was an exposed 
passage to the German lines. They had blocked 
this up by piles of sandbags, chevaux de frise, and 
rolls of barbed wire. 

As a greater precaution, a sentry was stationed 
[213] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

there night and day. He was sleeping deeply 
when the commander came by. He had to shake 
him vigorously to wake him up. 

" Say, do you sleep like that when you 're 
sentry? " 

" I ... it 's true ... I was asleep." 

" That 's not serious. Try hard, if an officer 
should come along, you 'd not get off with advice." 

" They won't come along; they 're all snoozing 
in their dugouts." 

" Oh, you never know." 

" Well, I 'm going mad sooner or later. I 
have n't slept a wink for three nights. If the 
Boches are as tired as I am they won't come to 
wake us up." 

As he talked, his voice was drawn out more and 
more and his head nodded. He was dead with 
sleep . . . 

The commander took his rifle from his hands 
and said : 

" I 'm not sleepy, and, besides, I shall sleep 
very well to-morrow. I '11 mount guard to- 
morrow. Sleep, little one, sleep. We, the old, 
have lost our habit of sleep." 

The sentry did not even acquiesce in this invi- 
[214] 



A COMMANDER 

tatlon. He had accepted it in advance, for he was 
asleep already. 

At daybreak when the relief came, the sergeant 
who accompanied the new sentry was thunder- 
struck when he recognized the commander mount- 
ing guard at the loophole. 

" Here 's his rifle. Wake him up when I have 
gone. Say nothing about it, for he was very 
sleepy." 

When the signal for the assault was given the 
next day, after our first two waves had gained the 
enemy trenches without firing a shot, the com- 
mander, who was to go with the third, had scarcely 
advanced on the field when the whistle of a single 
shell shattered the air. 

A " 77 " burst and a cloud of smoke went up. 
His thigh was torn off and we saw him fall in a 
pool of blood. 

Lieutenant Delpos was getting ready to dash 
across with the second section of the company and 
he jumped towards him. 

" Go on, my friend, the end has come. I am 
waiting for it. Tell Captain C ... to take com- 
mand of the battalion." 

[215] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

And during the slow agony which lasted a half 
hour he did not stop following attentively the 
progress of his men on the conquered positions. 

Stretcher-bearers carried his body to the church 
in Eclusier. 

We buried him simply on the hill at the east of 
Cappy in a military cemetery near the canal. 

When the news of his death was known in the 
battalion, I know more than a hundred who had 
seen their best comrades fall beside them, who 
wept as though they had lost their fathers. . . . 

He was with us only a month. 



[216] 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE ATTACK 

WE had been talking about It for months. 
The hour of the great attack has finally 
come. 

They have been preparing for it ever since we 
were transformed into diggers and sapers who 
dug trenches, parallels, communication trenches, 
and saps, day and night. 

It 's going to succeed at last. 

This time the artillery preparation won't be 
insufficient. 

We have guns, little and big, of every kind, of 
every caliber, from the little howitzers set low on 
their plates with their large muzzles like those 
we used to see on the terrace of the Invalides up 
to the great naval guns, long, lean and sharp, like 
a cigar, monumental guns of unheard-of size 
mounted on gigantic platforms, with covered tur- 
rets, new and odd foreign cannon, long as a train 
and mounted on rails. 

[217] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

And there are projectiles such as the wildest 
imagination could not dream of. Whole fields 
of shells of every caliber from the small " 75 " 
which now seem like playthings to the enormous 
" 400's " which can be moved only by gigantic 
jacks. 

And over this Immense sea of shells they have 
stretched a green colored tarpaulin, dotted with 
great yellow spots, with great chalky streaks which 
in the distance give them the appearance of a field 
furrowed by tracks. 

We have been encamped in a wood for three 
days under tents beside batteries of heavy artillery 
waiting for the order to take up our positions for 
the attack. 

And for these three days our constant occupa- 
tion has been to strengthen and set up our huts 
again, for every shot from the great neighboring 
gun drags them from the ground by the tremen- 
dous displacement of air. 

That Is all right in the daytime. This Pe- 
nelope-like work relieves the monotony and serves 
as a counter irritant to nervousness. But the occu- 
pation Is less Interesting at night. 

Finally, about nine o'clock one evening, a great 
[218] 



THE ATTACK 

uproar arose in the companies on the other side 
from us and by degrees, like a rising sea, reached 
us — we are in our usual place at the extreme wing 
of the battalion. 

The adjutant had advanced to meet the news 
and he came back on the run. 

" It 's come this time. They are distributing the 
playthings to clear the trenches and they 're going 
to give out an additional cup of brandy." 

" Do you believe it will be before to-morrow 
morning? " 

" Do I believe it. It 's sure, by God! Perhaps 
you want them to wait until next winter! " 

" No, but you know. There have been so many 
orders and counter-orders that one can never be 
sure. It ought to rain." 

*' Do you think it will rain? " 

"Good God! I wish it would. The sooner 
we finish the performance, the sooner we '11 get 
to bed." 

The colonel's orderly arrives with the orders: 

*' The Casanova company of machine guns will 
support the second battalion and will take the 
designated objective (Hill 707) directly after the 
third wave." 

[219] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

" The third wave ! Hum ! That 's not good. 
The first wave is a promenade, nothing in front. 
. The second goes over then, but the third has all 
the shells, for it 's right in the barrage." 

"And after?" 

"After?" 

" Say, you must think you 're in a cafe at La 
Cannebiere. Perhaps you 'd like to order an ice. 
This is war, you know." 

" I see it now." 

The distributions are finished at ten o'clock and 
we move towards our positions behind the second 
battalion. 

The men have taken off their belts and all their 
useless equipment and are in jackets with their tent 
canvas crosswise. 

The diluvial rain which has been falling for 
some days has stopped this evening. The sky is 
as black as ink and we can't see a yard in front 
of us. 

The paths were already muddy, but now they 
have disappeared after whole regiments have gone 
towards the lines without interruption for some 
hours. When we reach the communication trench 
it is no longer a trench at all, but a stream of fluid 

[ 220 ] 



THE ATTACK 

mud, where we sink over our leggings. We have 
to use our hands to pull out our legs when they 
get stuck. 

" Well, mon vieux, if we have to go clear to 
Berlin at this pace, we won't get there before to- 
morrow morning! . . ." 

It is so dark that we can scarcely see the back 
of the comrade in front of us. We march in 
silence, with our hands on the sheaths of the 
bayonet and our mask case to prevent the metal 
striking against the sides of the trench. 

It is after two o'clock when we reach the lines. 
We take our places as best we can, where we can, 
and with what we can find. 

The saps are filled with companies in reserve 
who will guard the trench while we fight. 

We find places against the sides of the trench, 
in chance dugouts gashed in the parapet. We 
have to be careful to keep our feet underneath 
us to avoid having our toes crushed in the inces- 
sant coming and going to and fro. 

Rifts in the clouds show us that the sky is clear- 
ing. It will be fine. 

We talk. We weigh optimistically our chances 
of success. But we hav-e to shout into each other's 
[221 ] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

ears or we could n't hear anything. Above us is 
the infernal roar of an incessant bombardment. 

Our guns have fired some days without inter- 
ruption. And the men never cease praising the 
heavy artillery. We have never been supported 
in this way. How far we are from the days in 
Champagne! We have confidence, absolute 
confidence. 

Day comes. The sun rises, the bright clear sun, 
which will be warm soon, rises over the ridge be- 
hind us. On the broad, many-colored screen of 
the sky with its rays of dawning day, the chimney 
of the distillery at Frameville, still intact and 
standing as though hurling defiance at the Ger- 
mans, stands out monumental and black like a 
gigantic obelisk. 

The countryside never stood out so clearly. I 
note the slightest details with a feeling which can 
never be effaced. I continue to look persistently 
to overcome my nervousness and to have some- 
thing else to think about. 

I look . . . 

Below, in advance, are light lines of freshly 
turned earth. They are the German trenches, and 
I think I can see among the apparent ruins the in- 

[ 222 ] 



THE ATTACK 

visible loopholes ready to belch forth death. A 
little further to the left, a few yards from the 
sides of the cliff is a small clump of woods which 
seems quiet and deserted. Our shells have started 
fires, but the fortified positions which conceal the 
machine guns are still there. 

I look . . . 

The ground and slope in front of me, close 
to the parapet, is empty, bare, torn full of shell 
holes. Young trees have been cut down, and the 
fallen trees are rotting in the earth under the 
growing moss. But daisies, buttercups, wild pop- 
pies, and cornflowers have sprung up and blos- 
somed, opening out to nature, the sun, and life. 

All the fires will shortly rage on these flowers. 
The blood of men will flow on them, and to- 
morrow their sweetness will be mingled with the 
charnel-house of corpses . . . our corpses. 

Nature has never seemed to me so moving. 
Tears come to my eyes. It is not fear. No, it is 
not that. There are times when one may be 
afraid. Here we realize that fear is a reflex im- 
pression, ridiculous, and above all useless; that 
the minutes which are left are perhaps too num- 
bered to waste in vain sentiments. 
[223 ] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

But while I look through the mirage of nature, 
I have seen a small shriveled figure with trembling 
lips, and eyes hollowed with pain and fright; I 
have seen small hands — long, pale, emaciated 
hands — clasped before a photograph; I have 
heard the expression so many times, read it so 
many times in the letters on my breast, on my 
heart: "Tell me that you will come back. You 
are my all, father, mother, brother, child, hus- 
band; tell me that you will be careful, that you 
will come back to me," and a slight uncontrollable, 
nervous trembling takes hold of me; but no one 
can see it. 

The blast of the whistle — the final order — 
rings out. I find myself on the slope without 
knowing how I came there, in the midst of the 
others, beside the lieutenant, at my post. 

Under a protecting storm of our " 75's " we 
advance towards our objective. The battalion has 
already crossed the first line of the Boche trenches 
without resistance. 

All nervousness is gone now. I am very cool. 
The third wave advances in front of us in good 
order, in step, without heavy losses. We march 
in their wake. 

[224] 



THE ATTACK 

There, thirty yards away, on the right is a 
knoll. That is our objective which we must occupy 
to prevent the enemy's reserves coming up. 

We draw nearer; my heart begins to beat vio- 
lently. It is nervousness. It is the beginning of 
the end. 

Suddenly a sharp noise stops me; then another 
beside my ear. Instinctively I throw myself on 
the hill. A sergeant falls near me without a word. 
He is dead, a bullet in the middle of his forehead. 

We are under the fire of a machine gun which 
defends the approach to our objective. 

The bullets whistle in a continuous buzz around 
us. A sharp burning pain, like a sting; a cry stops 
in my throat, on my very lips. I fall. 

The fusillade rages. To the right, to the left, 
around me everywhere, bullets bury themselves 
in the ground. I am wounded, but where? All 
my limbs are numb. 

I feel a hand take mine and grasp it. It is the 
lieutenant, who has already come running to me. 

" Good-by for the present." 

" For the present." 

It is nothing. A stone hurled violently by the 
bursting of a shell has hit me in the back. It has 
[225] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

just missed killing me. I remain there a moment 
without being able to get my breath back or to 
get up. 

All around there is an incessant rain of bullets 
and shrapnel. 

However, I can't remain there right in the bar- 
rage. I make an effort to catch up with the com- 
pany. My fall which took only a few seconds has 
put considerable distance between the wave and 
me. More than three hundred yards separate us. 

I want to run after it, but I can't. 

A greenish cloud rolls like a flood over the plain. 
The enemy is launching gas. 

Some one out of breath joins me. It is Morin 
who took a message to the major. He is now 
carrying an order to the lieutenant. 

" This is dangerous." 

" One might think so." 

" Commandant Courier was just killed getting 
out of the parallel." 

''No?" 

"A ' 155 ' square in the chest. It killed two 
officers and five men. I 've a splinter in my thigh 
and one In my shoulder." 

We walk along side by side as fast as we can, 
[226] 



THE ATTACK 

but slowly nevertheless. We can't do anything 
else. We get tangled in the barbed wire; we 
stumble over corpses; we fall headlong into shell 
holes. The mud covers the mica in my mask. 

A hundred yards in front of us the company 
reaches its objective, the hill and the Boche block- 
house. 

Two sections have rushed in and are already in 
action. 

Two more sections throw themselves into a 
crater more to the left opposite a clump of trees 
which is still held by the enemy. 

Suddenly there is a terrific explosion, and the 
most violent clap of thunder that can be imagined 
sends us head over heels. 

The ground trembles, the earth cracks, and 
through the crevices oozes a black smoke 
which envelops us. Everything is black. Are 
we entombed? 

A mine has been exploded near us in the en- 
trance. They shout ; they cry. Belts of cartridges 
burst in the furnace. A swarm of bees seems to 
fly over our heads. The blockhouse has just blown 
up with our two sections. It was mined. 

When the smoke lifts from the overturned 
[227] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

ground, all we can see are corpses scattered about. 
Our comrades . . . our dead! 

The enemy wanted to prevent our companies 
capturing and organizing it. 

We try to see something from the shell hole 
where we remain. It is certain death even to try 
to raise the head. The bullets glance off the 
ground. 

Morin wants to join the lieutenant and finish 
his errand in spite of everything, but where is he? 
Was he in the blockhouse? We can't see anyone 
in front of us. 

Our waves of infantry have turned to the right, 
invested Herbecourt, and taken it. They are now 
fighting in the village. We judge from the col- 
umns of smoke that there are fires. The noise of 
the explosion of grenades reaches us. 

But in front of us there is no one. It is a breach. 
The breach our company ought to have held 
firmly closed with its machine guns during the 
attack on the village. 

The enemy knows this without a doubt. He 
has calculated his blow well. He has succeeded. 
He is going to launch out from the clump of trees 
and take our companies in the rear. 
[228] 



THE ATTACK 

Indeed that is the case. Groups of gray worms 
crawl out of the thicket. They reach the ridge. 
They are a hundred yards from us. There is no 
one to stop them. But where are our two sec- 
tions? Are they wiped out too? 

" My old Morin, we 're done for." 

Our hands clasp in a fraternal farewell. In 
three minutes the Boches will be on us. They will 
kill us pitilessly. We hold our revolvers ready, 
fingers on the trigger. At least we won't go alone. 

They stand up now and shout. They are going 
to make a dash. 

" Vorwaerts! Got t for dam isch! " 

The harsh sound of the command and the oath 
comes to us clearly. 

They dash forward to take the crater. 

But almost at the end, at scarcely fifty yards, 
the four guns of our two sections, hidden in the 
shell holes, receive them with a withering fire. 

The Boche line cracks, breaks; groups of men 
fall in heaps, like puppets. 

Our guns fire constantly. 

The Boche line wavers, hesitates, the ranks 
thin out. We can hear the dead sound of the 
falling bodies. 

[229] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

We laugh and laugh; we applaud, crying like 
fools : 

" There are our two sections. Bravo! " 

But behind the files that fall are others in 
greater numbers which advance in close ranks, 
one after another. 

Our fire is slower. Our munitions are ex- 
hausted — the gun crew is firing all the cartridges 
of their carbines. 

The assailants realize this. Some of the groups 
have already reached our emplacements. An in- 
credibly tall and strong officer hurls himself on a 
gun. It is Marseille's gun. It has been silent 
just a moment, but it has n't finished Its task for 
all that. 

Marseille tears the barrel from the tripod, and 
using it as a gigantic mace beats the officer to 
death. 

A terrible hand to hand fight follows. The 
lieutenant, wounded, dripping with blood, on his 
knees on the parapet, stops the demoralized 
enemy with shots from his revolver. 

But this heroic defense of the breach can't last 
long. Most of our men have fallen and most of 
the rest are wounded. The enemy is still ad- 
[230] 



THE ATTACK 

vancing, in close ranks now. He is going to 
get by . . 

Then, from the support trench, which the . . . 
first Territorials hold, a company dashes out like 
a whirlwind, with an irresistible dash. It throws 
the mass of the enemy into disorder, and it is 
soon just a mob, which turns its back and flees 
frantically, as fast as it can go, falling under our 
rifle fire, and strewing the ground with corpses 
and innumerable wounded who drag themselves 
along on the ground begging for mercy. 



[231] 



CHAPTER XVIII 

WITH ORDERS 

THERE he is, Captain," shouted a non- 
commissioned Intelligence officer. 

" It Is necessary," said the captain, " to take 
this order to the lieutenant commanding your 
company at once. You '11 find that it 's only a 
promenade. Go ahead." 

A promenade! 

From the Chateau de Cappy where the head- 
quarters of our brigade were all one could see 
that morning on the horizon was smoke and 
flame. 

The earth trembles as though there were some 
sort of a fanciful, continuous earthquake. 

Since the attack began and our waves crossed 
the first Boche lines, the enemy's artillery planted 
on the heights of Clery, Mont St. Quentin, 
Barleux has sent over a formidable barrage to 
prevent all possibility of the arrival of reinforce- 
ments. 

[232] 



WITH ORDERS 

It hopes to cut off in the rear the forces en- 
gaged In the attack, to encircle them, to exter- 
minate or capture them. A wall of shell and fire 
separates them from us. Three hundred yards 
in front of the heights of the La Vache woods 
from La Vierge clear to Dompierre and Fontaine- 
les-Cappy, it is one uninterrupted explosion of 
great shells which throw to great heights enor- 
mous masses of earth and stones almost as 
though they were gushing from the bowels of 
the earth. 

This waste of shells is further beautified with 
" tear " shells and asphyxiating shells and is de- 
signed to stop all attempts at passing the barrage. 

This is the delightful place in which I have to 
take a " promenade." 

I adjust my mask, make sure that the straps 
are on, and secure my steel helmet by the chin 
strap. 

With the order in the pocket of my revolver 
case, a solid boxwood baton in my hand, I start 
towards the fiery furnace. 

The communication trench which I try to fol- 
low is impracticable. It is partly blown in and 
such dugouts as are still tenable are full of 
E233 ] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

wounded fleeing from the zone of combat. They 
crowd in pell-mell In their efforts to find a breath- 
ing place. 

Then, sooner or later, after the La Vache 
woods are passed, one has to walk, absolutely 
unprotected so one might as well go at once. 

Few projectiles are falling here on the great 
quarry as yet, but only a few shots too long or 
too short from the great guns aimed at the am- 
munition depot at Frolssy. 

The barrage Is further on. ... 

As one approaches It, the earth and air seem 
to tremble even more. . . . 

One walks on a moving wave, as if tossed about 
on the bridge of a ship. A displacement of air 
throws one to the right, the next one to the left. 
They march swaying like drunken men. 

I approach. . . . 

Some steps In front of what was the " Servian " 
trench Is the beginning of Hell. 

Men, oflicers, and stretcher-bearers are crouch- 
ing In holes In half-blown-In saps, waiting for a 
lull which for several hours has not come. 

The sick and wounded, haggard and frightened, 
do not dare to make a move outside the precarious 
[234] 



WITH ORDERS 

shelters which even the smallest shell would de- 
stroy and bury them alive. 

A Zouave, with a swarthy face and a profile 
like a medallion, gesticulates and shouts. A long 
gash cuts his forehead from the arch of his eye- 
brows to the ear; the blood flows thick and black 
on his cheek and runs Into his beard. He waves 
a rag on the end of a stick. 

" The noubah ! the noubah ! It is the noubah ! 
They are going to dance. You '11 dance with me, 
won't you? " 

And he runs towards the bombs, laughing a 
frightful laugh which makes me shudder. Poor 
fool ! A hole opens under his feet. He falls. 
Perhaps the fall will save him from a mortal 
wound. 

Some Colonials, fatalists, accustomed to so 
many other storms — for two years they have 
been in the hottest part of all the engagements — 
talk coolly under a dugout which is still intact. 
They squat on their crossed legs and smoke peace- 
fully. The smoke from their pipes, rising in slow 
easy curves, seems to set at defiance the frightful 
cataclysm which rages around us. 

A stretcher-bearer, a priest, whom I think I 
[235 ] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

recognize, is dressing a wounded man who has 
escaped in some way from the furnace and who 
faints in his arms. Intent on his bandaging he 
seems to have no idea of the Hell two steps away. 
He gives him the same care with the same im- 
perturbable calm that he would in the absolute 
security of some faraway ambulance. 

A staff-officer, a captain, is observing the ground 
through a glass. As is my case, he is carrying an 
urgent order which cannot wait. 

He looks at me and understands from my 
attitude that I, too, must go on. 

"Shall we try it?" 

" If you wish. Captain." 

" In case of accident, my pocketbook is in the 
pocket of my jacket, here . . . you will take it 
to the officer of details of the . . . first Zouaves." 

" Mine is here. Captain." 

I indicate the left pocket of my tunic. 

" All right." 

" Let 's go." 

He grasps my hand and we advance flat on the 
ground, bounding from one shell hole to another 
farther ahead. 

[236] 



WITH ORDERS 

We compel our bodies to take the shape of the 
excavation in which we burrow. 

Above our heads is a continuous whistling of 
shells, cutting like a sword, and the constant djji- 
djji of the projectiles which tear up the ground. 

The explosions are so frequent that we perceive 
only one infernal noise under a rain of fire. 

We crawl through an indescribable chaos, in a 
field of terror, in the midst of a pungent, fetid 
smoke. We reach the first German trench which 
we conquered yesterday morning. We jump into 
It; we are dripping with perspiration; our clothes 
are In rags. Our first act is to raise our masks 
for we are stifling under them. 

The asphyxiating shells now fall behind us, 
and their noxious gas blows In another direction 
away from us. We stop for some seconds to 
regain our breaths. We must go on. 

As we are about to climb out on the field again, 
I see one of our couriers coming at full speed. 
I must wait for him and learn where my com- 
pany is. 

But he stops, leans backwards, and his hands 
contract and seem to try to pull something from 
his breast. He falls Inert. 
[237] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

I crawl towards him. A spasm still shakes 
him. He looks at me. 

" The company! Where is the company? " 

" Maisonnette " he murmurs in a 

faraway breath, then, with an effort, his shaking 
hand reaches towards his jacket, but without 
success. 

" Sergeant-Major . . . there . . . there . . . 
to my mother ... in La Ciotat . . ." 

" Yes, mon vieux, yes." 

He is dead. I am trembling but I search for 
his pocketbook. It is sewed in a handkerchief 
and in drawing it out it is spotted with blood — 
his blood. I shall send it to his mother just that 
way. It is forbidden, but what difference does 
that make? I have promised. 

La Maisonnette! It is still three miles, per- 
haps more. I '11 never get there ! The staff-officer 
leaves me; he is going to the La Chapitre woods 
to the left. 

We grasp hands once more. 

" Thanks." 

Yes, thanks! Together we have done a most 
difficult thing — we have passed through a 
barrage. 

[238] 



WITH ORDERS 

Now, I go on across that terrible plateau, 
alone. 

Alone ! 

If a splinter of a shell hits me, no one will be 
with me during my last moments to listen to my 
final wishes. I continue my way under the rain 
of shells. 

Why I have not already been blown to pieces 
or buried I do not know. How little one feels in 
the face of this formidable power ! 

I turn around. On both sides and behind me 
there is no one ! I am in a desert in which a 
hail of fire falls. Will I get there? 

At every step I cross, touch, jump over, as I 
run against them, formless corpses, cut to pieces, 
or doubled into knots. 

Perhaps in a moment I shall be like them, dis- 
emboweled and my brains running out, or like 
those over there buried under rubbish and dirt. 
I can see a foot here, an arm there; they are 
entombed forever. I shall be listed among the 
missing, and my family and those who love me 
will cling to this shred of hope — that the missing 
is perhaps not dead. 

I go on steadily. 

E239] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

Abruptly, I experience a nervous reaction. I 
laugh ... I become a fatalist 1 And after? 
... I shall not be alone. That 's the common 
lot of millions of men. 

What is going to happen will happen. For- 
ward. 

And I crawl on anew, thinking of everything 
else — a mass of things a hundred leagues away; 
trifles; paltry trifles. I surprise myself by making 
plans which I shall realize after the war — when 
that is over! And, nevertheless, death hovers 
over me constantly, threatening, and I am much 
nearer to it than life. 

A trench opens before me; it is not badly de- 
molished. I enter it and find that it is an old 
one taken from the enemy this morning. German 
words indicate directions. They abandoned all 
their belongings. On a plank in a sentry post 
is a superb pair of prismatic field glasses. I pick 
them up — what use are they to me? I throw 
them down at once. 

I have enough to look out for close by without 
trying to see what 's happening farther away. 

" Nach Maisonnette." 

This direction before my eyes fascinates me. 
[240] 



WITH ORDERS 

" To Maisonnette." Well, I 'm on the right 
track. If the trench continues like this I have 
some chance of arriving there : nach Maisonnette. 

I mark the directions at each turn of the trench, 
at each branch. 

A big shell bursts on my left and utterly de- 
stroys the whole of the wall behind me. 

I take another course. The devil! Suppose 
that should be wrong. 

I reach a sort of crater made up of stones and 
trunks of trees blown apart and broken, in one 
complete tangle. 

It would hardly be wise to stay here, for the 
crater is hammered full of shell holes. 

A voice comes out of the ground between the 
stones, at my feet. 

" Oh, good morning, Margis. Keep to the 
right; the first street to the left is Peronne." 

I recognize the joking voice and constant 
laugh of Sub-Lieutenant Delpos. 

I have arrived; the company is here! 

This hole is Maisonnette! 

All right! . . . 

And I jump into the protection of the bottom 
of the sap. 

[241 ] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

At last! I ! 

White wine, brandy, fine preserves. Sub- 
Lieutenant Delpos never lacks for anything even 
in the most tragic hours of his life. 

He makes an elegant and comfortable dugout 
out of the most filthy hole. 

Ten miles from the living world, six feet 
under ground, in the midst of the shell fire, ten 
feet from the enemy, he offers me, with a laugh, 
a meal which is prodigious under the circum- 
stances. 

Cohare makes coffee on a burner and he flavors 
it with brandy. 

We talk of many things, of a thousand things, 
all a hundred leagues removed from the war. 
We talk about Marseilles. 

Sub-Lieutenant Delpos is a lover of its pic- 
turesqueness, of its color, its sun — we are in a 
deep sap lighted by a smoky candle — the sun 
means something to us, something fairylike and 
superhuman. To think that at that hour there 
are people living under clear skies, coming and 
going and breathing the strong sea breeze, and 
drinking in with their eyes that perpetual delight 
— a sunset on the rocks of Frioul ! 
[242] 



WITH ORDERS 

And the women of Marseilles! They are the 
quintessence of France, revivified by the air of 
the Mediterranean. Just think, wow cher^ of 
a villa perched in the pines, facing the sea, in 
the valley of L'Oriol, with a brunette that I 
know, 



" Oh, I forget, I must present you to the other 
gentlemen. Come." 

We emerge from the sap and come out in broad 
daylight. In a crater organized in the expectation 
of a probable counter attack, guarded by the 
strongest men of the section, twelve German 
prisoners are stretched out in the mud. 

Some of them stand up automatically at the 
appearance of an officer and assume a rigid 
military attitude. 

" Look at that rabble with their blessed faces 
like professors of natural history or like sac- 
ristans mumbling their prayers. Who would 
think to look at them that they are such cynical 
brutes? " 

"But I forgot. You speak German! . . . 
Try and get something out of them." 

So I ask them where they come from. 
[243] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

No one replies. Their eyes remain hostile and 
timid and full of fear. 

They distrust one another; informing is the 
common practice in their ranks. 

I look at one in particular, and, taking him 
by the arm, 

" Dii! wohen bist dii dann? '* 

" Aus Miinchen. . . ." 

From Munich. Munich ! I passed the best 
days of my youth there. Its splendid life, the 
magic of its lakes, the first iridescent snows of 
the Tyrol reflecting in their dark waters, the in- 
toxication of its music, Munich ! the city of my 
dreams ! The mystic grayish tints of the inns 
more smoky even than those of Auerbach but 
lighter, the impressive harmony of the statues, 
its incomparable museums, the June evenings on 
the Isar and the blue sunsets of the Propylees. 
Munich! And this man in rags, this tatterde- 
malion speaks to me of Munich. 

Well, Margis, are you wandering? " 

" Yes, Lieutenant. As a matter of fact I was 
woolgathering." 

And I come back to cruel reality. 

" Since you must return to the brigade at once, 
[244] 



WITH ORDERS 

you can take this crowd to the provost. I '11 
give you four men. That will be enough." 

" All right, Lieutenant, but I '11 not guarantee 
to deliver them whole. It 's a bad neighborhood. 
It rains shells." 

He looks at them and they are ready. All they 
have to do is to group themselves. 

" Go ahead, au revoir, — and a safe return." 

"Nun jetz Vorwaerts! " 

We go back along the road I came by this 
morning. The artillery fire has let up a little. 
As far as the crossing of the roads from Biaches 
to Herbecourt, we march along without much 
risk, but beyond there we are taken anew by a 
crossfire from the batteries of Barleux and Hem, 
and by the fire of a cursed machine gun. It 
seems to be hidden in the ruins of Flaucourt, 
but our artillery has not been able to spot it yet 
and silence it. 

My twelve prisoners march along ahead 
silently with bowed shoulders. They understand 
that they must march along peacefully at the same 
pace as the four big fellows who form the escort, 
and that once out of this zone their lives are 
saved. 

[245] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

We reach without incident the old road which 
cuts the Le Signal woods, and get back on the 
road from Herbecourt to Eclusier. An orchard 
here which before the attack was a signal station 
has not suffered much. The dugouts are whole 
and I stop my troop to look after my leg which 
has begun to bleed. 

A little while ago, as I was crossing some 
barbed wire entanglements, I felt a tear but I 
thought it was of no consequence. But now 
the blood has soaked through the drawers and 
trousers. I tear off a strip from my package of 
dressings and put on a bandage which stops the 
bleeding until we reach the next dressing station. 

I have hardly put my equipment on again than 
I hear beyond me in the road an Infernal noise of 
scrap iron, oaths and cries. 

I jump up. 

It is our movable kitchen driven by Gondran. 
Yesterday, it went ahead to Herbecourt on pre- 
mature orders. To-day, it was right in the bar- 
rage. Now that the long expected lull has come, 
the lieutenant is sending it back to Froissy. 

On the way back Gondran met four wounded 
men who were getting to the rear only with the 
[246] 



WITH ORDERS 

greatest difficulty, and he took them on his rickety 
wagon. This torpedo, with its big sheet-iron 
smokestack which is full of holes and twisted, 
does n't look much like an ambulance. Instead, 
one might think it was some archaic engine of war 
of the Gauls. 

Phoebe and Lidoire, the two lean hacks which 
drag it, are marked and cut by the harness and 
their legs are bent from pulling this badly 
balanced weight. 

Suddenly, the bombardment, which seemed to 
have ceased, begins again. First two shots, then 
repeated more and more rapidly, and only in 
our direction. A shower of splinters beats 
around us, wounds the two horses and cuts the 
reins. 

They run away at a mad pace with wild plunges 
through the fields. Gondran is wounded in the 
hands and is helpless; he clings to the smokestack; 
the wounded are tossed about. They shout from 
the pain of their re-opened wounds and hang on 
as best they can to the handle of the kettle. 

The speed of the two horses becomes giddy. 
They head for the quarry at a gallop. A hundred 
yards more and they will inevitably fall into the 
[247] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

canal, a fall of more than fifty yards. That would 
mean their utter destruction. 

I have no choice of ways in which to save the 
five men. 

With six shots from my revolver I kill one 
horse and throw the other to the ground. The 
kitchen comes to a stop twenty yards from the 
cliff. 

But danger is not averted by any manner of 
means. Shells follow us. From some faraway 
place an observer must have taken us for a " 75 " 
getting into position and he tries to destroy us. 
We abandon the kitchen which is now almost 
completely done for, and as fast as we can, saved 
by some miracle from the shells, which double 
in intensity, we throw ourselves into the first 
trench we find. 

I find the Territorials and the provost at the 
great quarry and I hand my prisoners over to him. 

It is only a step from there to headquarters. 
I arrive at six oVlock. 

Captain Chatain is outside the door, and I give 
him the reply he is waiting for. 

He runs it over with a smile of satisfaction. 

"Everything went all right, Sergeant-Major?" 
[24S] 



WITH ORDERS 

"Yes, Captain." 

" Good. Did n't I tell you that it would simply 
be a promenade . . . but I '11 recommend you 
for a citation." 

Half an hour later I was snoring soundly in a 
dugout. 



[249] 



CHAPTER XIX 

A WREATH 

WE fell back In good order — In as good 
order as our wounds and the enemy's 
artillery fire permitted. 

There Is a roll call of the company, now reduced 
in numbers by half, In the ruins of Dompierre, now 
cleared out, conquered and organized. 

None of the two sections surprised In the ex- 
plosion of the mine came back. 

There are great gaps In the ranks of the other 
two, especially among the non-commissioned offi- 
cers. One sergeant out of four and two or three 
corporals are seriously wounded. 

As names are called and there is no response, 
we look around as though to search better. Lips 
seem to murmur, " What, he too? " Eyes search 
the distance, the turn of the road at the entrance 
of the village, as If they still expect to see him 
come. But no one comes. They will never come 
again. 

[250] 



A WREATH 

The lieutenant has to furnish all possible infor- 
mation about each one missing. 

" Did you see him fall? Who was near him? 
Was he wounded? Do you think he was killed? 
Did he stay there motionless? " 

There were as many inexact replies as there 
were questions. No one knew exactly or could 
know exactly whether the fallen was killed or 
wounded ; appearances are deceitful. In the uproar 
of battle, he who seems dead is not even touched. 
Another may have had to stay hidden a long 
time to avoid being killed or made a prisoner. 

Opposite the name of each absent one the 
quartermaster writes: 

*' Missing the . . . presumably killed at . . ," 

After the roll call we separate silently. The 
most severely wounded are at the dressing sta- 
tions, and several are discharged by the ambu- 
lances from the rear: Sergeant Pierron had four 
fingers of his right hand blown off; Sergeant Du- 
rosiers with a shoulder broken by a bit of shell; 
Corporal Goutelle shot through the thigh, and 
has lost a lot of blood. 

We accompany them as far as the ambulances 
which take them to the casualty clearing stations. 
[251] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

Adjutant Dotant and Sergeant Lace take the 
initiative in buying a wreath and take up a collec- 
tion among the men of their sections. 

" Lieutenant, if you will allow us, we are going 
to buy a wreath at Harbonnieres and this evening 
two of us will go and place it on our comrades." 

Too moved to answer, the lieutenant acquiesces 
with a nod. 

Morin and I, the only two who are not wounded, 
offer to carry it. Our errand is not without 
danger; but we start off at nightfall. 

The wreath is light but large, and its width 
makes it difficult to get through the narrow 
trenches. 

We have to hold it at arms' length in certain 
places above our heads on the parapet and slide 
it along. 

Its ornaments catch in the stones and the twigs. 

It runs serious dangers before it reaches its 
destination. 

At Herbecourt the trench stops some yards in 
front of the entrance to the village. It is raining 
shells. 

The shells rage particularly on the road which 
runs through the village, the only one along which 
[252] 



A WREATH 

supplies can go. There is no longer a well-marked 
road. The well taken care of highway no longer 
exists; it is full of holes and is but one yawning 
crevasse more than three hundred yards long. 
The wagons and trucks have made a chance path 
in the neighboring fields. They wait at the en- 
trance of the village, some yards from the point 
where the barrage persists, for a lull. When it 
comes, they rush like a whirlwind with a mad burst 
of speed, and it is a miracle that they are not 
crushed. All one hears are oaths, cries, blows; 
wagons lock together, horses fall and get up at 
once; all this in the twinkling of an eye. Thirty 
wagons pass between two shells. 

We, too, make a dash and reach the other end 
without much risk. The danger is greater from 
the autos which rush by us like meteors, graze us, 
and threaten a hundred times to cut us to pieces 
or to catch our clothes and drag us under the 
wheels. But the greatest danger is from the tot- 
tering walls, and the waving roofs which the 
rolling of the wagons brings falling down. 

We reach the cemetery at the beginning of the 
country. It is still nearly intact. Graves are 
turned up; tombstones are thrown down on their 
[253] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

sides. Its walls are holed with loopholes, which 
served the last defenders of the village. But the 
grass is not even tramped down in the corners. 

" Can't we stay here five minutes to get our 
breath?" 

" If you want to. . . . We deserve it." 

A battery of " 75's " held the position a few 
minutes ago. It has just abandoned it to get 
nearer the lines. The place is deserted; it is like 
a visit in the country at two steps from the fiery 
furnace. We stretch out on a mound of turf- be- 
tween two tombs. 

It is the hour of twilight; the sky is golden; the 
sun on the horizon plunges into the marshes of 
the Somme. A fresh breeze blows through the 
privet hedge. 

" A summer evening in the country! " 

" Within the country would be more in accord 
with the circumstances, I think." 

As if to make my punning more emphatic, four 
*' 77's " burst at the same time and smash the 
cemetery walls to bits. 

" Foiitre! " This expression, peculiar to Mar- 
seilles, has a significant meaning on Morin's lips. 

" You have said it; the place is no longer safe." 
[254] 



A WREATH 

" The battery changed its position because it 
had just been spotted. We are taking its place 
and are a target for the Boche artillery." 

We make our way forward as fast as we can. 

The bombardment of the abandoned position 
behind us continues In volleys of four shells at a 
time. The cemetery we just left is nothing but a 
ruin, a chaos from which black smoke rises. 

We keep on running, each holding an end of 
the wreath which impedes us terribly. Although 
it is light, it seems heavy. 

Night falls and it is very dark. We are able 
to advance with more security now. Yawning 
craters open at our feet; we risk falls and sprains 
at every step. 

It is the dead of night when we reach the place 
where our company was decimated. 

An immense mass of humanity fills the place 
with a tragic tangle of intertwined corpses. 
Burned with powder, licked by the flames, torn 
and blown to pieces, the bodies cling to the wall 
as if they wanted to fly from the deadly fire com- 
ing from the depths of the earth. 

Indeed, planted on this host of bodies, his legs 
[255] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

sinking in up to his knees, the body of Sergeant 
Bacque seems to point out the road to deliverance 
with a gesture. His hands hold the pickets of a 
cheval de frise. A shell decapitated him at the 
very moment when he jumped and death fixed him 
in this attitude. 

Thin smoke still comes from the bottom of this 
sinister vat ! It is Hell in all its horror. The men 
saw death coming and tried to flee, but death was 
victor and fixed them to the spot. 

The burial of our friends would be a titanic 
task for our exhausted strength. We gather into 
a single pile the scattered bodies which the explo- 
sion hurled to a distance. With some barbed wire 
we hang the company's wreath on the cheval de 
frise which commands the great grave. It faces 
the Boches. 

To-morrow at sunrise they can see it from their 
nearest trench and read on its tricolored ribbon 
the inscription, " To our comrades, to our 
brothers, from the survivors of the second com- 
pany of machine guns." They will see how we 
pay homage to our heroes even under the threat 
of their shells. 

The drone of a cannon sounds in the English 
[256] 



A WREATH 

sector in the distance. One might think that there 
was a tacit truce on our side to let the dead sleep 
more peacefully in their last sleep. 

We remain there kneeling before the hecatomb. 
Our lips search for the prayers of our childhood 
to lay our dead at rest, but they have lost the habit 
of prayer and our memories fail at the first words. 
We wish a prayer which shall give their final 
blessing to the bodies stretched out there, but 
above all we want a prayer which shall give a 
kindly consolation in the approaching hour of 
anguish to those who wait — to the mothers, 
wives, sweethearts, who do not know, who hope 
and live in the dream of their joyous return. And 
our scepticism makes us unable to pray. 

The darkness of the night is absolute. 

The charnel-house of our comrades is only a 
dark mass in the shadows. A pungent, pestilen- 
tial odor already rises; we sense the sinister rust- 
ling of the rats which slip between the bodies. 

Groans rise on all sides in the darkness. Some 
shriek horribly in their agony; there are long 
wails; plaintive sing-songs call beloved names, 
childish words. 

Death, with its accomplice, Darkness, gleans 
[257] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

the last rebellious one who clings desperately 
to life. 



Behind us mounts the heavy rolling of the con- 
voys. It is the hour for the nightly supplies. The 
autos dash along on the torn up roads in the en- 
deavor to accomplish their difficult mission before 
the probable barrage fire begins again. 

On the top of the ridge where the enemy main- 
tains his lines for the moment, a searchlight throws 
its light on the ground and in the sky, in all direc- 
tions, watching for aeroplanes and searching for 
the passing of convoys on the road. Its light 
passes back and forth over us several times, hit- 
ting us in the face and dazzling us. It passes back 
and forth, flooding the plain with its moving bril- 
liant light. In its light we see moving forms: 
stretcher-bearers saving the wounded and plun- 
derers of the dead. 

Suddenly, the whizz of a shell comes our way, 
and a light bursts high in the air. Shrapnel launch 
their rain of fire and shell on the plain. 

'' Let 's go. . . ." 

We had scarcely time to throw ourselves flat 
on the ground when there was a tremendous ex- 
[258] 



A WREATH 

plosion. A " 380 " perhaps bursts on the middle 
of the mound of corpses and scatters it. One 
would think, that maddened by its orgy of murder, 
the enemy horde wants to kill our dead anew. 
A geyser of blood spouts up and boils from the 
mound. 

We try to flee but our limbs fail us. An invin- 
cible force rivets us to the spot, as we try to jump 
ahead. 

Morin utters a hoarse cry, a cry like an animal 
that is being slaughtered. A corpse was thrown 
up in the air and falls squarely on him and throws 
him to the ground. He is underneath, hemmed 
in by its shrivelled arms; streams of blood deluge 
him. 

I try to get him out, but I can't. My hands 
feel around on the mangled body. I feel the shat- 
tered limbs come apart under the clothes. I pull 
Morin out from underneath by his arms. He re- 
mains motionless for a moment. He is stupid 
from the shock and fright. I shake him. The 
arrival of a new engine of death which explodes 
beside us brings him back to reality and the immi- 
nence of danger. 

This time we run as fast as we can, stumbling 
[259] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

over the debris, tripping over the dead, rolling 
into shell holes, tearing our clothes, hands, and 
faces on the barbed wire. 

We flee, absolutely breathless, across old 
trenches which we see only when their depths yawn 
before our steps. 

We flee haggard, in a mad delirium, terrified, 
pursued by the vision of our dead, of their dim 
faces, their torn brows, their glassy eyes, their 
twisted mouths, which the shells still mangle 
. . . which the enemy kill again in their sleep of 
death. 

We flee encircled by the rattle of the fire which 
pursues us, and which with us draws near the 
road which we wish to reach and it to bar. 

A more violent puff, and close by, grazes our 
heads. 

" Attention ! . . . Stop. ... To earth ! " 

A violent shock, a hea\7^ blow between the 
shoulders, a hard vice grips my body and throws 
me on the ground. 

I fall. 

I fall, and then I remember nothing more. 



[260] 



c 



CHAPTER XX 

DISCHARGED 

OME, mon vieux, swallow this; it will set 
you up." 

A sergeant of the 88th Territorials is speaking. 
I see his white number as he bends over me. I 
swallow the contents of the cup at one draught. 
Ouf ! it 's strong; it burns, but I feel my strength 
coming back. 

Where am I ? 

I am behind a bank in a dugout cut in the side 
of the trench. How I got there I don't know. 
I have lost all idea of things. 

I am anxious about Morin. They don't know, 
but they say that they saw stretcher-bearers pick 
him up. 

I have received my reckoning, but I shall re- 
cover. I feel my trousers and boots heavy with 
a tepid dampness. I feel a shooting pain in the 
groin and something like a warm stream flows 
drop by drop. 

[261] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

The stretcher-bearer, Bertrand, an old college 
friend, now a Dominican, stops a second beside 
me, hurrying on to more pressing cares, to the 
more seriously wounded. He speaks kindly simple 
words, but what they are I know not. He speaks 
of country, the sun, my wife. 

My wife, the sun, the country, the return to 
life, the walks as of old in the woods, in the hills, 
the dreams at twilight, the cherished plans, the 
talk of love. Life is beginning again. Yes, we 
will begin all that again. And it will be finer 
now . . . after the test. 

A great relaxation comes; tears flow. I hardly 
suffer, but I am weak. I want to sleep. 

The stretcher-bearers will come presently, as I 
know, at nightfall. And through the roof of 
boughs I see the sun die away and the stars come 
out. 

The bombardment rolls in distant thunder; they 
say that it is increasing, coming nearer. 

Does that mean a counter attack? 

The sinister heavy blow of a great Boche shell 
shakes the earth of my dugout, and the leaves of 
my roof fall in torrents on my covering. 

I already feel anxious to get away. I am afraid 
[262] 



DISCHARGED 

now. I dread the final wound which will tear me, 
shatter me, kill me. 

It is dark night. Great drops begin to fall. It 
is going to rain very hard. The stretcher-bearers 
have come. I have to move so that they can place 
me on the stretcher. I feel the warm stream gush 
out; it is very strong this time. 

And I fainted. 

At the casualty clearing station at Villers an 
old major with a white beard gives me an injec- 
tion of antitetanic serum. 

Another examines my gaping wound. 

" Iodine dressing, H. O. E.^ Discharge to 
private life." 

And an automobile takes me speedily to the 
station where the sanitary train waits with 
steam up. 

The sanitary train! . . . For two days each 
roll of the wheels sound in my head like a great 
bell; and the belt which binds me seems tightened 
Into the most atrocious notch; at each turn of the 
wheels, at every movement it seems to me that 
the stream will begin to flow again, and that this 

' Hospital for the Discharged. 
[263] 



COVERED WITH MUD AND GLORY 

time It will all flow out until it is exhausted . . . 
with my life. 

Then, one evening, the rolling ceased; my 
stretcher was unhooked and they gave me some- 
thing to drink. ... I woke up in the hospital. 

A white bed, lights, nurses in white, who speak, 
who smile, who glide over the floors without mak- 
ing a noise. 

Can it be true? I no longer hear the noise, 
the hammering of cannon, and the infernal rolling 
of autos and caissons. It is strange. 

" Take No. 7 to the operating room," says the 
head doctor. 

I am No. 7. 

The operating room. ... It is all bright and 
white; through haggard eyes I look at the shining 
knives, the reflection of the glass, but a sharp 
odor seizes me, sickens me, stifles me. 

I am stifling. . . . My breath stops in my chest 
and no longer reaches my throat. ... I am 
stifling. . . . No, I hear the bells. ... I hear 
the bells. . . . How good they sound! 

Is it a dream? 

An anxious face, shining eyes, lips trembling 
[264] 



DISCHARGED 

with a kiss, the beautiful loved hair with its famil- 
iar perfume. 

And the gentle caress on my forehead. 
Both arms close about it feverishly, as if never 
to let it go, on this dear being who brings with 
her kiss: love, life, the future. 

"Oh! you! you! at last! forever!" 
" Yes, Georges, yes, forever. I am here." 
And the nurse standing at the foot of the little 
brass bed smiles with tears in her eyes. 



[165] 



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